Prominent Democrats have said objectively untrue things about the legislation, so it's not as bad as people say.
The Washington Post gave Joe Biden four Pinnochios for claiming inaccurately that it lowered voting hours.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...g-hours-early/
Voter ID is more popular than abortion. This bill does allow people to vote if they have photo ID, but also provides opportunities to vote if they do not.
There is a general understanding that a system of signature matches is deeply flawed, so going away from that makes sense. People change signatures all the time. People develop medical conditions that can affect their handwriting (which many younger voters barely do to begin with) and many change their names (there's an argument that signature match legislation penalizes women who are more likely to take their spouse's last name than men are.)
Drum's summary seems to exclude some key details, like the requirement that every county have at least one drop box, formalizing the online option for ballot applications, or allowing officials to process absentee ballots earlier. One complication in discussions is that there were changes in policy that were understood to be temporary due to Covid, so there are arguments about how to precede with this, as well as the appropriate rhetoric.
As for the sense that the bill "gives the GOP dominated legislature complete power to determine an election" it would be smarter if the messaging from critics of the bill stuck to that point, when the main complaints were about other stuff (Voter ID, an incorrect sense polling sites closed earlier, ban on third-party groups handing out water or food.) That way the discussion could be on the merits of those changes, rather than distractions. Making the Secretary of State a non-voting member of the State Election Board would seem sensible to people bothered by the secretary of state being a partisan elected official in charge of the elections of his political allies, or himself (check all the arguments in earlier threads about how wrong it was that Kemp could run for Governor.)
I notice that you're not addressing what he says at all.
Your argument is that a national correspondent at Slate, a left-leaning media outlet that is generally considered reputable, is so deeply flawed that we should dismiss his understanding of Georgia law.
One piece of evidence that you give is that he wrote a book called
Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War in 2003. The book was an analysis, but he's not in agreement with conservatives on abortion. This is an indication of a troubling tendency to view analysis as endorsement.
Then there's your take on a wikipedia summary of Saletan addressing a hot-button issue, where he cited a study, and then apologized afterwards because the coauthor of one article he cited was deeply flawed.
One question with the ad hominem is whether writers should be allowed to make mistakes. If you quote a writer, is it okay for me or numberthirty or PwrdOn or anyone who disagrees with you to ignore your comments on the issue, and to go after you with the least generous interpretation of something the writer said about a completely different topic? I wouldn't do it because I'm not a fan of ad hominems, but it seems to be an approach you advocate for the people you disagree with.