GA new voting law examined here from Business Insider - rather long but very important, too:
Civil rights groups including
the New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter, Common Cause, and the Georgia
NAACP have
filed federal lawsuits against the law, charging that its provisions
violate laws including the VRA (1965), and the 14th and 15th Amendments to the
U.S. Constitution. I marked what I call the “good ones” in GREEN – the others,
NOT so good.
Changes for voters:
o
Most counties will see expansions in early voting dates and hours.
o
The bill requires early voting from 9-to-5 pm during the week from
Monday to Friday, giving counties the option to be open 7-to-7.
o
Counties must also hold two Saturdays of early voting from 9-to-5 and
have the option to hold early voting on or both of the Sundays during the
period.
o
Previously, Georgia required Monday-Friday voting during “normal
business hours,” which were up to each county's interpretation, and one
mandatory Saturday of voting from 9-to-4.
o
The new requirements mean that voters in small, more rural
jurisdictions will likely see the greatest expansions in early voting while
early voting dates & times may stay same for voters in larger, more urban
counties.
o
Legislators shortened the window to request an absentee ballot.
o
Voters must provide identification to vote
absentee. Georgia previously conducted signature matching by comparing the
voter's signature on the outer envelope to a previous signature on file to
verify absentee ballots and applications.
o
Voters need to provide the number on their
driver's license or state ID card to apply for an absentee ballot.
o
They must provide one of those numbers or the
last four digits of their Social Security number to verify their ballot.
o
The state now requires voters to show a photo ID
to vote in-person.
o
Voters can now request an absentee ballot starting 11 weeks before
the election and ending 11 days before the election, a change that better fits
the USPS delivery standards.
o
Previously, voters could request a ballot starting
six months before the election up to four days before.
o
Ballot drop boxes are now permanent but only
available at certain locations and during limited times.
o
In 2020, Georgia voters got to use drop boxes
for the first time thanks to an emergency regulation from the Board of
Elections.
o
The new law codifies drop boxes as a permanent
fixture of Georgia's election system, but it only allows one drop box per
100,000 residents or one per early voting location, whichever figure is
smaller, and drop boxes will only be available during the early voting period
during certain hours, not 24 hours, seven days a week.
o
The period between general elections and runoffs
has been condensed from nine to four weeks. That means that voters have less
time to register, request a mail ballot, and vote early before runoffs.
o
Excepting for military personnel and American
citizen voters overseas, and those on the permanent absentee list who can sign
up to receive a ballot for every election in a given cycle.
o
Overseas and military voters will get
ranked-choice instant runoff ballots along with their general election ballots
that will be counted in the event of a runoff.
o
The bill sets clear requirements for challenging
voter registrations. Voters can challenge an unlimited number of other
voters' registrations.
o
A voter whose registration is being challenged must be notified of
the challenge and have a hearing date set within 10 days of the challenge being
filed.
o
“Ballot selfies” are banned. The law
explicitly prohibits voters from taking a photo of voting machines or their
absentee ballot.
o
The state will set up a voter intimidation
hotline.
o
Some provisional ballots will have new
restrictions. Provisional ballots cast by voters who cast a ballot in the wrong
precinct won't be counted unless they vote after 5 pm and sign a sworn
statement attesting that they couldn't make it to their correct precinct in
time.
Changes
for election officials:
o
The bill demotes the SOS chairing the State
Election Board, with the legislature appointing a nonpartisan chair of the
five-person board instead. The secretary will be a non-voting, ex-officio
member.
o
The new law also diminishes the power of SOS
Raffensperger, who rose to national prominence in 2020 for standing up to Trump
and defending the integrity of the 2020 election.
o
Democrat state lawmakers raised concerns
that the legislature appointing the Board chair and members.
o
Giving them Board more influence over local election departments
that run their own elections could present a conflict of interest.
o
The Board also has more power to temporarily
suspend local election superintendents for repeated violations of the law or
“nonfeasance, malfeasance, or gross negligence” over a period of two years.
o
The law allows the Board to appoint temporary
replacements pending formal reviews and hearings investigating the
superintendent's conduct.
o
The Board cannot independently enter into
settlements or consent decrees with litigants.
o
State and local election offices cannot send out
unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters.
o
The shorter runoff period will impact election
offices, which will have to immediately turn around and run another election
after certifying the last one.
o
Individual counties can no longer accept outside
grants and funding from private organizations, as many did in 2020 to held bear
the costs of running an election in a pandemic.
o
The State Election Board has been tasked to come
up with a plan to accept philanthropic funds and disperse them to county
offices.
o
Election offices cannot run mobile voting buses
during early voting, as Fulton County did in 2020, except in emergency
situations.
o
Paper ballots must be printed on special
security paper, which is more expensive than the type of paper currently
used.
o
Officials can begin verifying and processing
absentee ballots starting two weeks before the election, but cannot start
tabulating the ballots until the time the polls open on Election Day.
o
Election offices must report the total number of
ballots cast absentee, early, and on Election Day by 10 pm on election night to
serve as a denominator of the total votes that will be counted. Officials must
count all the ballots in one session to complete the count as soon as
possible.
o
The deadline to certify election results is
pushed up from the second Friday after the election, or ten days after Election
Day, to 5 pm on the next Monday, six days after.
o
Officials can recruit poll workers from other
counties outside of their own.
o
In precincts that serve over 2,000 voters had
wait times of over an hour in the last election
o
Election officials
must either split up the precincts into two voting locations or add more staff
and/or voting equipment to the location.
o Election officials must give sufficient public notice for location changes to early voting sites, and the time and locations of pre-election logic & accuracy testing of voting machines, which is open to the public.
Changes for candidates & 3rd-party groups:
o The most controversial provision some Republicans can’t defend bans delivering food, drinks, chairs, or rain gear within 150 feet of a polling place and 25 feet of a line to vote. However, election workers can set up water stations.
o
There are no more “Jungle” special
elections where candidates from all parties run on the same ballot. Going
forward, there will be separate Democratic and Republican primaries for special
elections.
o
Third-party groups and campaigns that wish to
send out absentee ballot applications to voters must clearly state that the
application is not coming from a government office and is not a ballot.
o
They also cannot send applications to voters who
have already requested a ballot on their own or already voted absentee.
o
The legislation clarifies training procedures
and rules for partisan poll-watchers affiliated with campaigns.
My 2 cents: All-in-all
this Georgia law in a word “sucks.”
Worse is that many states
are following suit while also painting an ugly picture attacking for our
guaranteed voting rights which should be by all accounts: easy, fair, and
secure… those “RED” states and their harsh new anti-voting laws rip that premise
to shreds.
Thanks for stopping by.
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