Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently fired off a letter to Larry David over a key storyline in the final season of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Rather than chide him over the show’s portrayal of a state voting law, Raffensperger tried his own wit, ribbing David while trumpeting a key accomplishment: shorter lines at the polls.
The Curb story arc started earlier this season, when David, on a visit to Georgia, was arrested when he gave a bottle of water to Leon’s aunt, standing in line at the polls.
That is a riff on Georgia’s real-life voting law, the 2021 Election Integrity Act, that prohibits groups from distributing food and drink to voters as they are waiting in line. Democrats seized on that provision of the law as an over-the-top restriction among several measures they said would suppress turnout.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained Raffensperger’s letter in a public records request and first reported on it.
In his letter to David, Raffensperger, a Republican, wrote, “As the chief elections officer for the State of Georgia, we’d like congratulate you on becoming the first, and to our knowledge, only person arrested for distributing water bottles to voters within 150 feet of a polling station. We apologize if you didn’t receive celebrity treatment at the local jail. I’m afraid they’ve gotten used to bigger stars. It’s the TMZ of mugshots.”
He also referred to other storylines in the show. “Moving forward, we would encourage her to avoid long lines by employing the well known ‘chat and cut,’ whereby one engages an acquaintance in fake conversation in order to join that person in line.”
Raffensperger also claimed that, contrary to predictions of critics of the voting law, it’s actually boosted turnout. He wrote “in the last two major elections were under two minutes, even as we experienced record turnout.”
Raffensperger famously came under pressure from the-President Donald Trump who, in Jan. 2, 2021 phone call, urged him to try to “find” 11,780 votes to put him over the top in the state, even though Joe Biden won it.
In the letter to David, Raffensperger wrote, “Whether wanted or unwanted, I know you’ve received a lot of attention related to your actions in a Georgia election. Believe me, I understand. And while my powers as secretary of state to perform miracles are often overstated, I’m afraid I lack the authority to grant a pardon — even if you call me to ask for one.”
An ongoing storyline of the show is David’s upcoming trial on his charges related to providing water to the voter. The final Curb airs on Sunday.