When James Quincey became chief executive of Coca-Cola in 2017, it’s fair to say he wasn’t focused on how to articulate the company’s position on the issue of voting rights. Instead, Mr. Quincey, who grew up in Birmingham, England, and has spent most of his career outside the United States, was consumed with the usual C.E.O. fare — expanding the business, keeping the share price up and not damaging the brand.

But in a measure of just how much politics has permeated big business these days, Mr. Quincey is now embroiled in a fierce debate over a wave of Republican legislation that would effectively make it harder for people to vote, including many Black voters, in some states.

As one such law made its way through the Georgia legislature in recent weeks, activists began to call on Coca-Cola, which has its headquarters in Atlanta, to publicly oppose the proposed law. Though the company doesn’t have a history of weighing in on voting rights one way or another, big companies have become increasingly drawn into social and political conversations in recent years. As a vote on the law drew near, Mr. Quincey was under pressure to pick a side.

Coca-Cola ultimately issued a carefully worded statement saying that “voting is a foundational right in America” and pledging to “work to advance voting rights and access in Georgia and across the country.” But it didn’t publicly weigh in on the legislation before Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed it into law last Thursday.

The company’s cautious response drew protests and calls for a boycott from activists, who wanted Coca-Cola, along with other major Georgia companies like Delta Air Lines, to speak out against the new law. More than 70 prominent Black executives called on corporations to do more to protect voting rights.

As the week went on, more companies and even sports leagues spoke out. Dell and American Airlines publicly condemned a restrictive voting bill being advanced in Texas, and Major League Baseball said it would move the All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest of the new law.

Hours after the Black executives made their statement, Mr. Quincey forcefully came out against the Georgia law for the first time. “I want to be crystal clear,” he said. “The Coca-Cola Company does not support this legislation, as it makes it harder for people to vote, not easier.”

The statement was welcomed by activists, though many said it was too little, too late. Yet at the same time, Mr. Quincey’s words drew the ire of prominent conservatives, with Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Stephen Miller, an adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, attacking the company on Twitter.

Laws similar to the one just passed in Georgia have been proposed in nearly every state, and, in part to combat that, Congress is working on a sweeping bill that would reform voting rights nationwide. Already, activists dissatisfied with the company’s response in Georgia are pressing the company to do more around the country, while conservatives call on Coca-Cola, and Mr. Quincey, to stay out of politics.

It was another illustration, as if one was needed, of how the political polarization straining the country is creating fault lines in corporate America, with big brands caught in the middle.

The following was condensed and edited from two conversations, the second of which took place six days after the Georgia law was passed.

You waited six days after the Georgia law was passed to criticize it. What changed?

What changed is the legislation passed. The process was curtailed, was rushed, was not profound enough, and the resulting legislation is unacceptable, and it needs to be corrected. Work needs to be done to make this a step forward, not a step backward, in terms of broader access to voting, and that’s what we’re going to continue to advocate for as we go into this next phase.

Whatever we were doing before was not getting through. People are misconstruing, by honest error or willfully, what we have stood for and what we’re trying to do. Obviously they could disagree whether you should do more or less in private and public. But there’s enough stories out there saying the opposite of what we’ve actually said and believe in. We have to go and correct that at the very minimum, and most importantly, we need to generate some clarity that we’re going to continue to advocate against this bill.

Do you regret not coming out against the law more forcefully before the law was actually signed by Governor Kemp?

No one in the legislature was under any illusion as to our views on the various drafts or even the final law. They knew. Would it have made any difference if we had said anything publicly? We’ll never know. If we could have done something in retrospect to have made a different outcome, of course, we would have preferred to have done it. Because we don’t like the outcome.

Similar bills are being advanced in more than 40 other states. How far will Coca-Cola go to oppose them?

We’re a Georgia-based company. That’s going to be certainly our starting point. I don’t see us having the wherewithal to understand every nuance in every other state. I think there will be energy directed at the federal level. If you go back historically, federal oversight of changing the voting processes in the states has been an important process to make sure that things move forward, not backward.