GA. GOVERNOR SIGNS SWEEPING ELECTION BILL
Critics say it will add restrictions, lead to longer lines to vote
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed into law a sweeping voting measure 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 law is one of the first major voting measures to pass as dozens of state legislatures consider restrictions on how ballots are cast and counted in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when President Donald Trump criticized without evidence the integrity of election results in six states he lost, including Georgia.
The new law imposes new identification requirements for people casting ballots by mail; curtails the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots; allows challenges to voter eligibility; makes it a crime for third-party groups to hand out food and water to voters standing in line; blocks 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 prevents local governments from directly accepting grants from the private sector.
The law also strips authority
from the secretary of state, making the official a nonvoting member of the State Election 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 Democratic jurisdictions, many of which are in the Atlanta area and are home to high concentrations of minority voters.
The measure, backed by Republicans, sailed out of the House and Senate on party-line votes.
Kemp signed it afterward, saying at a news conference that with the new law, “Georgia will take another step toward ensuring our elections are secure, accessible and fair.”
“Contrary to the hyperpartisan rhetoric you may
have heard inside and outside this gold dome, the facts are that this new law will expand voting access in the Peach State,” the governor added, noting that every county in Georgia will now have expanded early voting on the weekends.
But 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,” Sen. Jen Jordan, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor Thursday.
“‘We want to provide opportunities for people to vote,’” she said, echoing GOP descriptions of the measure.
“This bill is absolutely about opportunities — but it ain’t about the opportunity to vote. It’s about the opportunity to keep control and keep power at any cost.”
In 43 states across the country, GOP lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with constraints such 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. More proposals have been introduced since.
During the Senate debate in Georgia on Thursday, Sen. Gloria Butler, a Black Democrat 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 a proposal to limit mail voting only to those with a reason such as age, illness or travel. The new law also increases required early-voting hours across Georgia after an uproar about a proposal to ban Sunday voting, a restriction that would have hindered “souls to the polls,” the longstanding effort to encourage Black voters to vote after Sunday church services.