Georgia lawmakers pass sweeping voting bill that would curtail the use of drop boxes and allow challenges to voting eligibility
By Amy Gardner,
Dustin Chambers Reuters
Georgia lawmakers approved a sweeping voting measure Thursday that proponents said is necessary to shore up confidence in the state’s elections but that critics countered will lead to longer lines, partisan control of elections and more difficult procedures for voters trying to cast their ballots by mail.
The measure is one of the first major voting bills to pass as dozens of state legislatures consider restrictions to how ballots are cast and counted in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when former president Donald Trump questioned the integrity of election results in six states he lost, including Georgia.
The bill would impose new identification requirements for those casting ballots by mail; curtail the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots; allow challenges to voting eligibility; make it a crime for third-party groups to hand out food and water to voters standing in line; block the use of mobile voting vans, as Fulton County did last year after purchasing two vehicles at a cost of more than $700,000; and prevent local governments from directly accepting grants from the private sector.
The 95-page bill also strips authority from the secretary of state, making him a nonvoting member of the State Elections Board, and allows lawmakers to initiate takeovers of local election boards — measures that critics said could allow partisan appointees to slow down or block election certification or target heavily Democratic jurisdictions, many of which are in the Atlanta area and are home to the state’s highest concentrations of Black and brown voters.
The measure sailed out of the state House and then the Senate in a single afternoon; it now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who has not yet announced whether he will sign it, but is expected by many party officials to do so.
A Kemp spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
In 43 states across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee, according to data compiled as of Feb. 19 by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Even more proposals have been introduced since then.
In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a voting law earlier this month that reduces early- and Election Day voting hours and moves up the deadline for mail ballots to arrive at local election offices.
[How GOP-backed measures could create hurdles for tens of millions of voters]
In Georgia, Democrats and voting-rights advocates condemned the bill as a flagrant effort to make it harder for some voters to cast their ballots — particularly those in larger, minority-heavy counties that have a long history of insufficient polling locations and long lines.
“It is like the Christmas tree of goodies in terms of voter suppression,” said Sen. Jen Jordan, a Democrat, on the Senate floor Thursday.
“‘We want to provide opportunities for people to vote,’” she said, echoing Republican descriptions of the measure. “This bill is absolutely about opportutnies — but it ain’t about the opportunity to vote. It’s about the opportunity to keep control and keep power at any cost.”
State Sen. Gloria Butler, a Black lawmaker who represents suburban Atlanta, called the measure “an unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era.”
“Make no mistake, this is democracy in reverse,” she said. “Some politicians did not approve of the choice made by voters in our hard fought election.”
Republicans noted that the final bill did not include prior proposals to limit mail voting only to those with a reason such as age, illness or travel, and to curtail early voting on Sundays. The approved measure also increases required early-voting hours across Georgia to include at least two Sundays — an apparent concession after an uproar about a proposal to bar Sunday voting, a ban that would hinder Souls to the Polls, the long-standing program to draw Black voters to the polls after Sunday church services.
“Our goal is to ensure election integrity and to restore confidence in the election process,” said Sen. Max Burns (R), calling the measure a “well thought-out bill.”
Another Republican, Sen. John Albers, maintained that the measure “expands voting access in Georgia.” He accused critics of “sensationalizing and misrepresenting the truth.”
Multiple Democrats stood to speak against the bill in both House and Senate Wednesday, in some cases expressing astonishment at the Republican argument that the measure would improve the voter experience. They took particular aim at how the bill could undermine local control of election administration, and said it was hard to view the restriction on providing foot and water to voters in line as anything other than an effort to making it unpleasant to vote.
