New vote law prompts more legal challenges

It’s been less than three weeks since Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Senate Bill 202, but the overhaul of Georgia’s election system has already seen its fourth and fifth lawsuits.

The first of those two suits came from Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. It takes issue with limits on ballot drop boxes, new ID requirements, restrictions on absentee ballot application mailings and a shorter deadline to request absentee ballots.

The suit states that Asian American voters in Georgia will suffer a disproportionate impact since they cast absentee ballots at higher rates than other racial groups in 2020.

The new law limits the location of drop boxes to inside early voting locations, and they are only available during voting hours. Absentee applicants must provide a driver’s license number, state ID number or other documentation when requesting an absentee ballot.

The other suit was filed by organizations that mailed millions of absentee ballot request forms to Georgia voters last year. They allege that SB 202 illegally curtails their voter outreach and violates their free speech protections under the First Amendment.

SB 202 only allows groups to send absentee ballot applications to Georgians who haven’t already requested a ballot or voted. The restriction followed complaints from voters who said they received multiple letters asking them to request absentee ballots, even after they had already done so.

Under the law, organizations will have to check public election records to make sure they aren’t sending repeated ballot request forms to voters. If they don’t, it could get pricey — they would face a fine of $100 for each duplicate absentee ballot application that’s processed by county election offices.

“This law makes it virtually impossible to run vote-by-mail application programs that help Georgians cast their ballots,” said Tom Lopach, president of the Voter Participation Center and the Center for Voter Information, two of the plaintiffs in the suit.

The first three lawsuits were filed to oppose drop box restrictions, ID requirements, absentee request deadlines, provisional ballot disqualifications and a ban on volunteers providing food and water to people waiting in line to vote.