(NewsNation) — The final episode of the iconic HBO comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” garnered rave reviews, but not everyone approved of the seasonlong storyline that tackled Georgia’s controversial 2021 voting law.
The episode featured a cameo from NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live,” as the season revolved around show creator Larry David’s unlikely legal turmoil over the Georgia law. In one scene earlier this season, David’s character was arrested for giving a bottle of water to someone waiting in line to vote, which was outlawed under the legislation.
Abrams appeared on the TV screen in a restaurant giving a “NewsNation Special Report” about the arrest as fictional Larry David picked up a coffee.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, fired back with a cutting letter, congratulating David on “becoming the first, and to our knowledge, only person arrested for distributing water bottles to voters within 150 feet of a polling station.”
The letter continued, “We apologize if you didn’t receive celebrity treatment at the local jail. I’m afraid they’ve gotten used to bigger stars.”
“When people do absurd things, you respond with absurdity,” Raffensperger said Monday on NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live.” “The real irony of ironies … is actually, it’s illegal to hand out water in his home state of New York.”
The Georgia law states, “No person shall … distribute or display any campaign material, nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink … within 150 feet of the outer edge of any building within which a polling place is established.”
The secretary of state maintained that the law is aimed at preventing electioneering and politicking within a 150-foot radius of polling places, not at preventing poll workers from providing necessities to voters.
“What we said is you can’t do any politicking, electioneering. But … poll workers, they can hand out all the water they want,” Raffensperger said.
While acknowledging the technical violation, Raffensperger said that the law is not being enforced in such a strict manner, noting that Georgia has reduced waiting times at the polls to less than two minutes on average.
“We’re really working on the important issues and proving that we get the results posted up quickly,” Raffensperger said. “And we have now 17 days early voting so people have plenty of opportunities to vote in Georgia. We have high record turnout.”
Despite the controversy, Raffensperger seemed to take the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode in stride, even joking that he’s a “conservative Republican” who’s “just not mad about it.”
“We’re having some fun with this … I think Larry David probably fell out of his chair when he got that letter from me. ‘Wow, a Republican with a sense of humor, must be a ‘unicorn.'”