New Jersey Woos Film Studios Amid Outcry Over Georgia’s Voting Law

The governor’s tax credit offering is the same as what is included in New Jersey’s economic-incentive package that the state Legislature passed last year.

In his letter, the governor also drew a contrast between voting rights in Georgia and New Jersey. Mr. Murphy signed a law on Tuesday authorizing early in-person voting to begin 10 days before Election Day for general elections. Georgia currently allows three weeks of early in-person voting conducted Monday through Friday as well as two mandatory Saturdays and two optional Sundays, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. He also called Georgia’s new voting law an “un-American” attack on people of color.

“They are going in one direction, and we are going in the opposite direction,” Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, said in an interview.

Georgia’s law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp last week, includes stricter identification requirements for voters to use absentee ballots. The law limits how parties and voting groups mail out absentee-ballot request forms and caps the number of ballot drop boxes at one per county except for large counties, which can set up one box for every 100,000 registered voters.

In New Jersey, voters don’t need to provide a copy of their identification to cast votes by mail ballot except under certain circumstances for first time voters. Voters in New Jersey can also request a ballot to vote by mail for any reason. Each county in the state must maintain at least 10 drop boxes for ballots.

Mr. Kemp has defended Georgia’s new law as a necessary measure to give voters confidence in the state’s electoral system and to ensure that it is free of fraud. No court or legislative body has found evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“While New Jersey just passed a law with these reforms, Georgia already has online voter registration, automatic voter registration and no-excuse absentee balloting,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Kemp said. “We also have a minimum of 17 early voting days, while they have nine.”

Several voting-advocacy groups have sued Georgia officials over the new law, and several Georgia-based businesses have spoken out against it, including executives from Delta Air Lines Inc. and Coca-Cola Co.

The film companies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Among the major production companies, only ViacomCBS Inc., owner of the Paramount movie studio and several TV production entities, has commented on Georgia’s new law. The company didn’t address whether it would pull any productions from the state. However, ViacomCBS said it would “continue to educate the public on the importance of an open and fair voting system through our programming and extensive partnerships with grassroots organizations.”

Over the past decade, film and TV production has departed Los Angeles for some states and countries around the world offering lucrative tax credits.

Georgia’s package, which offers producers a credit up to 30% on production costs, has attracted hundreds of productions since it was introduced in 2005, including numerous Marvel Studios epics like “Avengers: Endgame” and “Black Panther.” The years of production have established a robust supply of massive soundstages, crews of local workers who can handle big-budget work and the local nickname “Y’allywood.”

Georgia’s politics have clashed with the largely liberal leanings of Hollywood in the past. In 2019, a state law that restricted abortion access prompted some outcry among producers and actors but did little to change studio plans to film in the state.

Three years prior, then-Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed a religious-exemptions bill after studios and other companies threatened to leave if it went into effect.

Major studios have largely stayed quiet since the voting law passed, though some actors and directors have said they would not film within its borders.

James Mangold, whose Oscar-nominated film “Ford v Ferrari” partially filmed in Georgia, said he wouldn’t return while the voting-law was in effect.

Write to Joseph De Avila at [email protected] and Erich Schwartzel at [email protected]