The crucial action comes this week. The state General Assembly, controlled by the Republican Party, has only five days of legislative work remaining on its calendar before its postponement on March 31. House and Senate lawmakers say they plan to finalize changes to electoral projects in the coming days.
A comprehensive bill that a key House committee is expected to pass on Monday would impose identification requirements for absentee voting, limit the use of ballot boxes and disqualify most provisional ballots issued outside voters’ home districts. It would also be a misdemeanor to provide voters with food or soft drinks while they wait in line.
Of particular concern to voting rights activists in the state: Measures that strip the authority of the elected secretary of state and grant state officials broad rights, including the ability to replace local electoral officials.
“We are facing an emergency,” Hillary Holley, organizing director of Fair Fight Action, told CNN.
Despite last-minute changes to the package to preserve more early voting over the weekend, “this project remains nothing more than suppression of voters,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund. “The recent changes are nothing more than putting a little makeup and perfume on Jim Crow.”
His group plans a rally on Monday at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Atlanta to pressure companies to oppose the package, part of a week of planned action.
High risk
Georgia, a battleground, is at the forefront of efforts by Republican-controlled legislatures across the country to impose tough new voting restrictions. The proposed voting limits in Georgia arrive before the US governor and senate contests next year.
A February count from the liberal-minded Brennan Center for Justice tracked bills that would restrict voting in 43 states. More states have joined the list since then, with new bills recently arriving in North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Republican state lawmakers have made their efforts as necessary to support a system hampered by allegations of fraud. A preamble to the House bill said that it was designed “to resolve voters’ lack of confidence in the electoral system on all sides of the political spectrum” and to promote “uniformity in voting”.
Election rights activists say the measures under consideration would restrict access to the ballot boxes to broad sections of Georgia’s increasingly diverse population.
Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said that identity requirements for obtaining absent ballots would hurt older voters, low-income voters and college students because they are less likely to have a driver’s license or other forms of identification required. such as passports or a state or federal photo ID card.
The Georgia House bill would require voters to provide on the ballots their driver’s license numbers or state identification numbers and other identifying information, such as their date of birth.
Georgia Republicans “are saying the vote should be for 1% and … for the privileged,” Dennis told CNN.
Last minute changes
In recent days, Georgia lawmakers have backed down on a clause that critics say would target black voters. Republicans now say they plan to preserve the vote on Sunday as part of the overall voting package that the House committee will take on this week. The change under discussion would specifically allow Georgians to vote on two Sundays during the state’s early voting window. An earlier bill sought to allow only one optional voting day on Sunday.
Fleming’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At a meeting last month, Fleming said the projects aim to resolve the “controversy” surrounding the recent elections.
Georgia Republican Senator Max Burns, who chairs the Senate panel dealing with electoral projects, drafted a supplementary bill, the text of which was released on Friday afternoon. His committee is scheduled to discuss the matter on Monday, with a vote on Tuesday, Burns told CNN.
At a meeting on Wednesday, Burns said his version “would address some of the problems and some of the challenges we have.” He did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend.
New Powers
Both measures give state lawmakers more authority over the elections.
A clause in the House bill elects the secretary of state elected as chairman of the state election council. The General Assembly would choose the new president, giving lawmakers three out of five appointments to the board.
The Chamber package would also grant the state electoral board the right to suspend local electoral superintendents and local electoral boards and appoint a new officer to intervene as a temporary superintendent.
Election rights activists say this runs counter to the tradition of local control and could lead to a scenario in which state officials invade the country to prevent a county from certifying its election results.
“Imagine if they had that power in the last election,” said Albright of the new authority that the Georgia package contemplates. “It is the provision that can surpass all others in this bill.”