New Georgia laws worry election workers
Some state regulations have criminal penalties
Milton Kidd has been an election administrator in Georgia since 2012.
But since the 2020 presidential election, he has felt the climate around his work shift. Some of it is because of increased threats and animosity from voters, but another part is related to new regulations that Kidd said have constricted his office’s resources and changed how it operates.
“We’re paying lip service in this country that we value elections,” Kidd, director of elections and registration in Douglas County, Georgia, told USA TODAY. “But that’s not being shown by the laws that are being passed.”
More than half of U.S. states have enacted laws since 2021 that could limit voter access and inhibit the ability of officials to administer elections, according to a new report published by the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election-related legislation nationwide.
At the national level, former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have floated legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting, which is already illegal in federal elections.
But other significant new rules are already in effect in major 2024 battleground states, including Georgia, that could help to decide the results of a close presidential election.
In Georgia, in particular, a series of election rules passed over the past three years threatens to overburden election officials and, in some cases, issue criminal penalties against them. New election measures passed by the Republican-led state Legislature in late March that are awaiting a signature from Gov. Brian Kemp could further hamper the way elections offices operate if enacted, experts say.
Liz Avore, lead author of the Voting Rights Lab report, argued that these laws take “steps toward almost treating election officials like they are suspects in a crime” and “treating election offices like they’re crime scenes.”
For the election workers with whom USA TODAY spoke, however, the main concern is that the heightened regulations may hinder the recruitment of poll workers for the 2024 election.
Republican leaders in the state, including Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have defended the laws, arguing they bring enhanced security and provide clarity around laws for election officials.
Raffensperger said he didn’t see an issue with poll worker recruitment in 2022 after some of the initial election laws were passed, and doesn’t expect to see any in 2024.
In recent years, Kidd said, one of his biggest work-related fears has been making a mistake on the job that could land him in prison.
Georgia is among nine states that have enacted laws ramping up investigations into and prosecution of election crimes, according to the Voting Rights Lab report.
A measure passed in the state’s sweeping 2021 election integrity law opened election workers up to felony prosecution if they issue an absentee ballot request form to a person who does not request one. Another passed in 2023 made it a felony, punishable by up to a year in prison, for officials to accept more than $500 in private funding for election administration.
Until the past few years, neither action was illegal. Election offices across the country, including those in Georgia, accepted grant money to supplement funding provided by their states in 2020. The extra money allowed them to hire more poll workers, increase educational outreach to voters and boost other capabilities.
But false claims that private money influenced the 2020 election led Georgia and 26 other states to pass laws cracking down on the use of outside money.
In Georgia – a state that had a $16 billion budget surplus in 2023 – there have been no efforts to increase the budgets of election offices or provide alternative sources of funding as a result of the ban on private money.
Meanwhile, the state has enacted measures that have changed the way elections are run and that may increase the workload of elections offices.
Under the changes, Kidd argued, it’s not inconceivable that election workers could make those felony-level mistakes – especially during another possible runoff election when they’re juggling multiple tasks under tight deadlines.
“We’re expected to pull out what will be the largest election in U.S. history and the runoff associated with it with less funding than we had for 2020,” Kidd said.