Georgia Senate Bill 202: Considering Both Sides
Georgia is Still Firmly in 2021, not 1921
by Jake Bogartz
For non-opinionated information on the bill, I recommend reading my Breaking news article on the Elliot or this article on the Wall Street Journal.
There is continued national uproar over a voting bill that passed in Georgia on March 26. The MLB has pulled the all star game from Atlanta, Joe Biden likens the bill to Jim Crow, and the masses try to squeeze disapproval out of Coke and Delta. The optics of the bill were bad to say the least. Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill surrounded by 6 other old white dudes under a painting of a plantation while a black female state representative was arrested outside. Suffice to say not many people cared to look into the actual provisions of the bill after seeing this and hearing the constant accusations of voter suppression from politicians, celebrities, and the President himself.
The most basic evidence against the bill is the fact that it aims to tackle voter fraud when voter fraud isn’t really a large issue. This is exacerbated by the fact that voter fraud is seen as a big issue only by republicans and is deeply associated with Donald Trump and the events of January 6, 2021. However, the fact remains that people are concerned about voter fraud, and perhaps if republicans were more confident in elections the nation may never have had the pleasure of watching a guy with buffalo horns stroll through the promenade of the Capitol Building. This bill aims to assuage those concerns about elections and in doing so is perceived as alleviating concerns that democrats will win elections due to the votes of minorities.
There are 7 main provisions out of the 98 pages of SB 202 that draw the most flak. The first gives state election authorities the power to replace local election officials. The popular belief is that this will allow the state to come in when they see a democrat pulling ahead and suddenly turn all the votes red. In reality, this will probably only be used when a precinct has persistent severe problems. For example, in this past election Floyd County accidentally overlooked 2,600 ballots and the chief election official was fired. So this concept isn’t even new, it's now just standardized, a theme throughout the bill. If there is evidence that this provision is used to overturn votes that should have been verified, then we can discuss it as a cause of disenfranchisement. The Secretary of State will no longer serve as the chairman of the state election board and will be replaced by someone who is appointed by the state legislature. Given the right wing skew in the Georgia state legislature, this is certainly a pitfall of the bill. The election board operated perfectly fine in the last election and secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, demonstrated upstanding integrity in a phone call where Trump urged him to do something about Georgia voting for Biden. In terms of confirming election integrity to the populous, I would certainly much rather have an elected official, like the secretary of state, in that position.
The shortening of early voting, and the standardization of weekend voting is seen as a way to prevent those who have rigid work schedules, often underprivileged individuals, from voting. The bill actually increased the required weekend early voting period to two weekends. This is seen as a reduction because before one was required for precincts but more were optional. Now, the standard is set at 2 weekends statewide to make it fair across all precincts. In earlier versions of the bill this was a stronger argument as they aimed to remove Sunday voting, but the bill that passed kept Sunday voting in place. This is important as black churches often have a “souls to polls” tradition after Sunday services. Overall the early voting period in Georgia now begins on October 12 which is a 4 day reduction, but most other states start around the same date, with New York suppressing voters all the way to October 24.
Ballot Drop Boxes have been severely restricted from their operations in this past election. These boxes are great for busy groups, so it's obvious how this suppresses voters right? Nope. These boxes didn’t even exist before this past election when they were implemented due to the pandemic and were supposed to be removed after this year. However, thanks to this bill ballot drop boxes are a constant fixture of our elections. The boxes will now only be available during voting hours at poll locations. Voters will have more options than 2019, but less than in the anything-but-normal 2020.
Perhaps the most outrageous yet popular attack on the bill, echoed by Biden, is the restriction on handing out items including food and water at polling locations. Liberals gawk at how evil it is to use dehydration as a weapon against voters just waiting to enact their civil duty. However this is not what the bill does. It prevents third parties, BLM or the NRA, from doing a little electioneering disguised as providing that much needed water at polling stations. The most egregious part of these claims is that the bill specifically states that polling stations can have a self service water dispenser available to voters. There is also nothing stopping voters from bringing their own food and beverages to the polls. In fact, the bill aims to prevent voters from even one stomach rumble by requiring polling stations to time the voting line 3 times a day and make improvements if it takes over 1 hour.
Absentee ballots, a valuable tool for busy voters, are just as accessible, but much less subjective. Voters will still be able to request an absentee ballot without an excuse, making Georgia a bastion of voting freedom over such conservative dictatorships as Connecticut and Delaware which don't allow “no excuse” absentee ballots. The main change to mail in voting is that the unreliable and highly questionable signature matching system will be replaced by a requirement for a valid ID number. The signature matching requires poll workers to physically examine signatures which is a system that takes more time, is easy to mess up, and can give license to either side of the aisle to question elections. Thousands of ballots were rejected last year due to signature issues, to rectify these issues voters needed to provide an ID. Requiring an ID to start may even allow more votes to be counted because it removes the extra step of voters checking the status of their ballot. If you go to the polls in person you have always needed a valid ID, so why should mail in voting, an intrinsically easier to defraud system, be any less strict. This provision is what sets Georgia apart the most from other states. A few states require ID with first time mail in voters and a few more require them for in person voters, but none require them with every vote. It is impossible to know for sure the breakdown of ID holders by race but it is assumed that less underprivileged and minority voters have IDs. Those who don’t have IDs can get one for free at the DDS or a registrar's office in the two years before the next election. This is definitely a pain, but it does not equate to literacy tests and KKK voter intimidation. Perhaps if republicans had less licence to question mail in voting in 2020 that much more steam would have been vented from Trump’s Stop The Steal movement.
The final provisions move the date for runoffs closer to the actual election which irks democrats as they won two crucial senate seats in the Georgia runoffs last year. However, any Georgia resident knows It’s hardly a crime to limit the number of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ads we have to watch during Bowl season and NFL games. There is still a requirement for at least 5 days of early voting which is significantly reduced from the early voting for last year's run-offs. Again, there is an argument here that this could potentially make it harder for people to vote, but the connection to a specific race isn’t very strong. Shortening this period will however reduce strain and costs on voting officials and infrastructure.
This bill is not Jim Crow 2.0, it is a victim of the astronomical and concerning level of political division that is tearing our country apart. If this bill was passed in any other year and not after Georgia going blue for the first time in decades, I don't think America would bat an eye to it. The criticism of this bill instead seems inextricably and unfairly linked to the most controversial president in history being voted out amidst a pandemic, following the largest racial equality movement in recent history. If you think otherwise, and believe this is an attack on your freedoms; the best possible thing you can do is get your friends, go exercise your most sacred constitutional right, and vote.
Georgia's New Voting Laws: Jim Crow 2.0 Set Out To Stop a Blue State
by Ruby Kaufman
“It doesn’t say brown and Black people can’t vote. It simply says we’re going to remove things that we saw you use to your benefit; we’re going to make it harder for you to access these opportunities.” - Stacy Abrams
Black men first secured the right to vote in the 1870s and it was not until 1919 that Black women were granted that same right. While this right did exist for Black men as early as the late 1800’s, it was not until recently that exercising the right to vote did not come at the cost of their lives. Medgar Evers did not fear his life fighting in World War Two, but what did scare him was the wrath of white Mississippians after he employed his right to vote in the 1945 presidential election. This is just one of the many Black individuals who feared employing such a foundational American right. Luckily, today in America, voter suppression no longer looks like a bullet, but there's still plenty of tactics used to suppress the right to vote from Black citizens. Now that overt violence is not a normalized tool, we rely on racist and classist legislation to do the dirty work. From Jim Crow to gerrymandering to the new Georgia Senate Bill 202, our country continues to rely on systemic racism to encourage voter suppression.
Laws aimed to limit the rights of people of color are not by any means foreign to Americans. Legislation and norms such as the war on drugs; the banning of voting following incarceration, a demographic primarily filled by Black men; and over policing in Black areas are just a few of the many norms directed at limiting the progress made by Black people in America. While many individuals are working to reverse racist legislation, laws that have been deemed “Jim Crow 2.0” are advancing around the country, and some of the most comprehensive legislation has recently passed in Georgia. The Georgia voting bill essentially increases voting restrictions and after being carried through the house by a Republican majority, was quickly passed into law. While Republicans who helped pass this law claim that it is in hopes of eliminating future voter fraud, with still no proof of voter fraud, it is evident this law has much more malicious intent; to restrict Black progress and to further the suppression of voting amongst minorities in order to stop Georgia from voting blue. It is also important to remark that the driving force of this bill is because Georgia voted blue in this past presidential election and the senatorial races, largely thanks to Georgia’s Black voters. The results of the Georgia election played a pivotal role in Joe Biden’s win.
To begin to understand my claim that the new Georgia voting laws are in fact adjacent to the past infamous Jim Crow Laws regarding voting, it is important to understand the truth of these laws. Jim Crow laws did not directly ban black people from voting. Rather, voting related Jim Crow laws were a collection of statutes that, through loopholes, aimed and successfully restricted voting rights, and other American rights. To do so, laws such as the Grandfather Clause, Literacy tests, and poll taxes were put into place.
So, what is this bill really doing? How are these provisions furthering obstacles to vote? I’ve broken down some of the major facets of this bill but, if you would like to see what all the law entails, look at the official ninety-eight page bill here.
Guaranteed yet limited drop boxes
One good aspect of this new bill is that it does require each county in Georgia to have a minimum of one dropbox for voters to place absentee ballots. However, this law also limits the maximum “amount of ballots a county can have, how many hours and days the boxes can be open, and where they can be located.” A county can not have more than one dropbox per 100,000 voters or a maximum of 1 dropbox per voting location. While in smaller counties this law may increase absentee voting, in large counties like Fulton County, this provision will create a dramatic decrease in drop box options. This change increases the number of voting locations in largely republican rural spaces and decreases polls in democratic and minority filled cities. Furthermore, this law limits the location of drop boxes as now they must be in an election office.
Shortened Runoffs
This law shortens the time allotted for runoff election campaigns and the runoff election voting period. The runoff election is now 4 weeks after the general election, 5 weeks earlier than before this legislation. The law also eliminates 3-4 weeks of the runoff voting period, meaning people will have less time to vote in a run-off. It is important to note that in Georgia’s senatorial races, both democratic candidates won during the runoff period.
Absentee Voting Redefined
The bill reduces the allotted time for absentee voting and it strengthens the identification requirements for these voters. This reduces that amount of time people have to requisition an absentee ballot and to submit their absentee ballot. Since previous elections have proven the absentee ballots tend to lean towards blue candidates, shortening the opportunity to cast these votes would decrease blue votes in the state of Georgia. State and Local governments can no longer send absentee ballot applications to those who did not order one, whereas in the past election, because of the pandemic, an application was sent to all eligible voters. Lastly, the new law, opposed to voters having to show their signature, must now “provide their Georgia driver's license number, the number on their state identification card, or the last four digits of their Social Security number.” Shortened voting windows will, “have an effect on voters who cannot vote during business hours.” All of these provisions, while seemingly insignificant, “respond to an increase in voting by people of color by constricting, removing or otherwise harming their ability to access these perquisites.”
Food and Campaign Restrictions
One of the more unfathomable restrictions seen in these new laws is the illegalization of distributing food and drink to those waiting in line. While this is supposed to limit campaigning, its heightened effects on minority areas prove this legislation is directly meant to limit Black democratic votes. In non-white majority areas “where voter registration has surged” and the number of voting locations has shrunk, lines are long and banning a reliable distribution of food for those waiting hours discourages voting in these areas. While people technically working at the voting locations may still provide food and drink for those waiting in line, it is not mandatory and in low income areas may not be funded. Furthermore, groups are no longer permitted to campaign outside of election locations.
While these laws may not directly limit the voting of democratic groups, it does increase the cost and effort needed to mobilize and help minorities get their vote out; with more restrictions, come more obstacles, which works to silence the minority voice that truly helped to secure the results we saw in the most recent election.
This change in Georgia voting laws is by no means a coincidence. It is a direct result of Georgia voting both blue in the presidential and senatorial 2020 elections. The monumental results of these elections are in large part due to the vast increase of Black voters, thanks to Stacey Abrams and others.
Would there have been claims of voter fraud and would these laws have been proposed and passed if Donald Trump, Kelly Loffeler, and David Perdue had won the majority of Georgia’s votes? The answer to this question shows that the implementation of these laws did not help to eliminate non-existent voter fraud, but rather works to limit blue votes cast by minorities.