New Georgia voting restrictions clear first committee

Bill would require reason, ID number to submit an absentee vote

ATLANTA — Bills requiring an excuse and an ID number for absentee voting in Georgia cleared their first committee Wednesday, creating new restrictions after last year’s presidential election.

A Senate subcommittee voted 3-2 along party lines to approve the bills, which now advance to the full Ethics Committee.

Georgia law has allowed any registered voter to cast an absentee ballot since 2005, but Senate Bill 71 would limit absentee voting to people who are over 75, have a physical disability or are out of town.

Democrats said the bill would stop people from voting from home if they’re worried about their health, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.

“COVID isn’t choosy,” said state Sen. Sally Harrell, a Democrat from Atlanta. “We are all vulnerable. We don’t know which person this virus is going to kill.”

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga, said voters should have to provide a reason to vote outside a polling place, as they had to before the Republican-controlled General Assembly made it available to everyone 16 years ago.

“I wouldn’t call it going backward. I would call it going back to a more manageable, more respectable form of voting absentee,” Mullis said.

Thirty-four states, including Georgia, allow any qualified voter to vote absentee without having to provide an excuse, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The second bill passed by the subcommittee would require voters to submit a photocopy of their ID, a driver’s license number or other state ID number when requesting an absentee ballot.

Voters are already required to submit a driver’s license number when requesting an absentee ballot online, but there’s no ID requirement for paper absentee ballot application forms. In-person voters must show photo ID.

“The purpose of this proposal is not to make it hard to cast a legal ballot, but to make it harder to cast an illegal ballot,” said state Sen. Larry Walker, a Republican from Perry. “The public can have confidence and trust in the integrity of our election results.”

Opposition to Senate Bill 67 came from Democratic Party senators who said mailing personal ID documents would create opportunities for identity theft.

Chris Bruce, political director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, testified that both bills will create obstacles to voting after record numbers of people cast absentee ballots in the November election. Of 5 million people who voted, 1.3 million returned absentee ballots.

“In a democracy, we should be focusing on ways of making voting easier for our citizens,” Bruce said. “This bill … has the potential to disenfranchise a significant number of voters.”

Two more bills also passed a separate Senate subcommittee Wednesday. All four bills now advance and could be considered as soon as Thursday.