Georgia lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to legislation that imposes new comprehensive restrictions on access to voting in the state, which makes it more difficult to vote by post and gives the state legislature more power over the elections.
The move was sanctioned by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, on Thursday night. “Significant reforms were needed in our state elections. There is no doubt that there were many alarming problems about how the election was handled, and those problems understandably led to a crisis of confidence, ”said Kemp during statements prepared shortly after the project was signed.
It requires voters to send identifying information with both an absent vote request and the ballot itself. Limits the use of absentee ballot boxes, allows unlimited challenges to voter qualifications, reduces the runoff period from nine to four weeks and significantly reduces the time voters have to request an absentee vote.
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The legislation also authorizes the state legislature, currently dominated by Republicans, to nominate a majority of the five-member state board. That provision would remove Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who faced Trump after the election, from his current position as chairman of the board. The bill creates a mechanism for the council to remove power from local electoral councils.
Gloria Butler, a Democratic state senator, said the bill would make voting more difficult, especially for the poor and disabled. “We are witnessing a massive and blatant attack on voting rights, unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era,” she said shortly before the project was approved.
“This project is absolutely about opportunities, but it is not about voting opportunities. It’s about the opportunity to maintain control and power at any cost, ”said Jen Jordan, a Democratic senator, on Thursday.
The legislation comes after Georgia had a record turnout in the November election and the US Senate’s second round in January, including outbreaks among black voters and other minorities. It has become the center of national attention because many see it as the crystallization of a national drive by Republicans to make it more difficult to vote. Referring to a measure in the Georgia bill that prohibits the supply of food or water to people lining up to vote, Joe Biden called this national effort “sick” during a news conference on Thursday. “It makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle,” he said.
Facing opposition from the state’s top Republicans, Republicans have given up on requiring voters to give an excuse to vote by mail. And in the midst of national protests, they backed down in recent weeks on proposals to ban early voting on Sundays, a day that black voters traditionally use in disproportionate numbers to vote. The measure passed on Thursday actually expands the weekend’s early vote in the state, requiring an additional Saturday and authorizing counties to offer it on two Sundays, if they so wish.
Republicans took advantage of this provision in the bill on Thursday to claim that they were actually expanding voter access in Georgia. “The bill greatly expands voter accessibility in Georgia and greatly improves the election administration process, while offering more responsibility for ensuring that the vote is properly preserved,” said Barry Fleming, state representative for the Republican Party. who led the legislation said on Thursday.
They offered little substantive justification for the need for the measure after an election in which there was a record turnout and in which several recounts in the presidential race found no evidence of fraud. Instead, they said the bill was necessary to preserve voter confidence.
The nearly 100-page measure was only formally revealed last week, when it was abruptly inserted into another two-page account. Although the legislation includes several of the measures that legislators have debated, it does include some new ideas that have not been fully debated. Democrats and election activists have accused Republicans of trying to pass a bill without scrutinizing it.
Democrats and voting rights groups are expected to quickly open a series of lawsuits questioning the measure.