State Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, urges support for his bill on absentee voter ID requirements from the Georgia Senate floor on Feb. 23, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Stricter identification rules for voting by mail in Georgia inched closer to law with the state Senate’s passage of a controversial bill on Tuesday.
Sponsored by state Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, the bill would require absentee voters to provide the number of their driver’s license or official state ID card, or photocopies of a passport, employee ID card, utility bill or bank statement.
It was among three bills that passed the Senate on Tuesday, marking the first election-focused measures to clear a General Assembly chamber in the 2021 legislative session.
The absentee-voting bill passed by a nearly party-line vote, as did two other measures sponsored by state Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, that would shorten the time limit for local registrars to enter voting data into the state’s voter-history system and boost reporting requirements for the state’s election-results website, including the number of absentee and provisional ballots issued, cast and rejected.
A fourth bill by state Sen. Jen Jordan, D-Atlanta, that gained unanimous approval in the Senate Tuesday would let counties begin processing absentee ballots about a week before Election Day, helping ease pressure on local elections officials to count mail-in ballots.
The four bills that passed Tuesday are among a legislative package backed by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over the Senate. Gov. Brian Kemp, state House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also support tightening absentee voter ID rules.
Republicans have set their sights on overhauling Georgia’s current system of verifying signatures on mail-in ballot request forms and envelopes, eliminating a focal point for attacks by former President Donald Trump and his allies who alleged absentee voter fraud and called for deeper audits of the 2020 election results.
Democratic leaders and voting-rights groups oppose the measure, framing it as an attempt at voter suppression to halt Democrats’ momentum after flipping both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats and carrying Georgia for Democrat Joe Biden over Trump in the November presidential election by 11,779 votes.
Speaking from the Senate floor Tuesday, Walker highlighted how vote-by-mail skyrocketed in the 2020 elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when Georgia voters cast millions more absentee ballots than normal.
Given mail-in voting is expected to remain popular, Walker said tightening voter ID requirements would create “very common-sense” rules for verifying voters, which would help county elections officials check identities with greater accuracy.
“It’s not about disenfranchising voters,” Walker said. “It’s not about overburdening the electorate.”
“It’s about efficiency and security and election integrity and allowing the Georgia public to have confidence in the vote.”
Democratic senators did not buy that argument Tuesday, voicing opposition from the floor to the bill over privacy concerns and hurdles for voters who do not have driver’s licenses.
Choking back tears, Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, who is one of the legislature’s longest-serving members, called the bill a bald attempt by Georgia Republicans to change the rules of the election game and warned them to expect a legal brawl if their absentee voter ID wish-list passes into law.
“I’m going to tell you, we’re going to fight,” Lucas said. “There’s no question what’s going to happen. And you’re going to spend taxpayer money trying to defend it.”
The bill passed by 35-18 nearly along party lines, with state Sen. Michael “Doc” Rhett, D-Marietta, voting in favor. All four bills now head to the Georgia House of Representatives.
Duncan, who backed the four-bill package, hailed the measures as “common-sense election reforms” that aim to “modernize our election procedures.”
“I am focused on maintaining confidence in our electoral process and making it easy to vote and difficult to cheat,” Duncan said in a statement.
The Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus scoffed at Duncan’s optimism, calling the four bills a product of “disingenuous” efforts by Republicans to create hurdles for voting after their recent statewide election losses.
“We all know none of these measures would have satisfied people who were misled by leaders in their party about election outcomes,” the caucus said.
Walker’s bill mirrors one proposal in a wide-ranging omnibus elections bill moving separately through the House. The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, was set for a fourth hearing Tuesday afternoon in the House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which Fleming chairs.
Other Republican-brought bills are winding through committees in both chambers, including measures to end automatic voter registration when obtaining new or renewed driver’s licenses, provide closer access for poll watchers to view ballot counting and allow state elections officials to take direct control of elections and registration activities from poor-performing county officials.
Legislation to boost voter ID requirements and procedures for casting absentee ballots in Georgia is winding through the General Assembly. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – An omnibus bill proposing broad changes to Georgia’s absentee and in-person voting faced more debate in a state House committee on Monday, adding to a trove of other elections-focused bills in the state Senate.
The 59-page bill contains roughly two dozen changes including controversial proposals boosting identification rules for mail-in voters, requiring absentee-ballot drop boxes to be located inside polling places and outlawing early voting on Sundays.
Other changes outlined in the bill include consolidating precincts with long wait times outside polling places, banning people from offering food or drinks to voters while they wait in line and allowing local officials to open and scan absentee ballots a week before Election Day.
Democratic lawmakers and voting-rights groups have skewered the bill, sponsored by state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem. Fleming chairs the House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which has held three hearings on the measure. It will likely face a vote this week on whether to advance to the full House.
Fleming and the bill’s backers argue the proposed changes are needed to shore up confidence in the state’s election system after the 2020 election cycle drew claims of voter fraud from former President Donald Trump, who lost the general election in Georgia to President Joe Biden by 11,779 votes.
“There has been controversy regarding our election system,” Fleming said at an earlier hearing on Feb. 18. “I believe the goal of our process here should be an attempt to restore the confidence of our public in our elections system.”
Fleming’s wide-ranging bill would also eliminate Georgia’s “jungle primary” format for special elections that place candidates from all parties for a vacant seat on the same ballot. It would scrap the kind of free-for-all election that forced former Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler into a losing runoff with now-U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock last month.
Democrats have slammed many aspects of the bill that squeeze access to vote-by-mail and early voting, particularly the proposed ban on Sunday hours during the three-week early voting period. Those restrictions could especially impact Black and other minority voters in Georgia who have long faced hurdles to voter access, critics argue.
State Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, who is the General Assembly’s longest-serving member, called that change too restrictive.
“When you lift the water, all boats rise,” Smyre said an earlier hearing last week. “You give everyone the same opportunity.”
The voter ID proposal in Fleming’s bill mirrors a measure moving separately in the state Senate that would require absentee voters to provide the number of their driver’s license or official state ID card, or photocopies of a passport, employee ID card, utility bill or bank statement.
The Senate’s absentee voter ID measure, sponsored by state Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, is among several bills set for a floor vote on Tuesday that have backing from Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over the chamber.
That measure, along with Fleming’s proposed bans on Sunday voting and handing out food and drinks to voters in line, have drawn the ire of voting-rights groups like Fair Fight, which was founded by former gubernatorial candidate and Democratic rising star Stacey Abrams.
“[Fleming’s bill] is a bad-faith attempt to limit democracy in our state,” the group said in a statement Monday. “Georgians deserve elected officials who protect our constitutional rights first and foremost – not their own power above all else.”
Republican state leaders still stinging from the loss in Georgia of the presidency and both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats have focused on the elections proposals as among the key actions they hope to accomplish during the current legislative session, dismissing accusations from Democrats of voter suppression.
Lawmakers should focus on revising laws and policies with absentee voter ID rules, access for poll watchers to observe ballot counting, cleaning up voter registration rolls and auditing the state’s voting machines, said Brad Carver, an Atlanta attorney who led the drafting of a report on the 2020 elections issued this month by the Georgia Republican Party.
“We need to have a system where every legal vote counts in this state,” Carver, who chairs the state Republican Party’s 11th congressional district chapter in north metro Atlanta, said Monday. “At the end of the day, we’re hearing from our voters who have lost confidence.”
Reaction to Fleming’s bill from state and local elections officials has been mixed. Janine Eveler, director of the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration, told lawmakers last week she supports tighter voter ID rules but would not like to keep absentee drop boxes inside polling places.
Deb Cox, elections supervisor for Lowndes County, agreed many of the proposals like more voter ID rules would help local officials run elections, while other parts of the bill like a deadline of 11 days before Election Day for voters to request absentee ballots might dampen voter access.
“I think the bill itself meets the happy medium between the extremes of voter access and security,” Cox said.
Fleming did not indicate when he would call for a vote on his bill but said another committee hearing is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
Georgia lawmakers on the state Senate Ethics Committee pray before considering election-focused bills on Feb. 18, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Georgia senators sent legislation to boost identification requirements for absentee voters to the state Senate floor Thursday in a committee vote along party lines.
A bill sponsored by state Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, would require voters seeking to request and cast absentee ballots to provide their driver’s license or other valid ID such as passports, employee ID cards, utility bills or bank statements.
The measure was among a slate of bills to clear the Senate Ethics Committee Thursday and head to the Senate floor for votes as early as next week.
Other bills that passed included legislation to create a new state elections supervisor, allow county officials to count absentee ballots before Election Day and tighten reporting requirements for voting results.
They are among a legislative package backed by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over the Senate. He has called for tightening absentee voter ID requirements but opposed efforts by some Republican leaders to restrict who in Georgia can vote by mail.
Walker’s bill is among the more controversial absentee-voting changes Republican lawmakers are seeking after the 2020 election cycle caused distrust in Georgia’s election system for supporters of former President Donald Trump, who lost the general election in Georgia to President Joe Biden by 11,779 votes.
“It is an attempt to provide an easily verified way to confirm that the person requesting the ballot is indeed who they say they are and that live ballots are only issued to legal voters,” Walker said Thursday.
“There is nothing in here that makes it harder to vote or [that] obstructs voting by absentee.”
The bill would require registered Georgia voters to provide their date of birth and driver’s license number, or the number on their personal ID cards if they do not have a driver’s license, in order to request an absentee ballot.
Without a driver’s license or personal ID card, voters would have to submit photocopies of a different form of valid ID such as a passport or utility bill to their local elections board or registrar.
The bill would also make permanent an online portal to request absentee ballots that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office set up for last year’s elections, which drew millions of mail-in ballot requests amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The stricter absentee ID rules in Walker’s bill would do away with the state’s current system of verifying signatures on mail-in ballot request forms and envelopes, eliminating a focal point for attacks by Trump and his allies who alleged absentee voter fraud and called for deeper audits of the 2020 election results.
Raffensperger, whose office repeatedly rejected Trump’s fraud claims, has backed increasing the absentee ID requirements during this legislative session, as have other top state Republicans including Gov. Brian Kemp, Duncan, House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, and the Georgia Senate Republican Caucus.
Democrats, meanwhile, are opposing Walker’s measure and others on absentee voting that they view as attempts at voter suppression meant to curb Democratic momentum after the party seized the presidency and both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats in the 2020 elections.
Several Democrats on the Republican-controlled committee argued Thursday the bill could disenfranchise voters who do not have driver’s licenses, and possibly raise the chances for identity theft with more people sending out sensitive personal information and documents in the mail.
“I think you’re trying to cure a problem in your mind,” said Sen. Ed Harbison, D-Columbus, the Senate’s longest-serving member. “But the truth is, it opens the privacy door.”
Walker dismissed those concerns, acknowledging some voters are “going to have to make an effort” to verify their identities without a driver’s license, but that the benefits of tightening absentee voter ID verification would outweigh the privacy risks.
“I’m not saying identity theft can’t happen,” Walker said. “I think the value of this is way higher than any potential risk of it happening.”
Other Republicans on the committee pointed out Georgians already have to show their ID’s to vote in person, as well as for many other activities such as boarding an airplane or interacting with police officers during traffic stops.
“We are a nation of laws,” said Senate Majority Whip Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega. “We’re used to having identification cards on us.
“I just can’t understand anybody opposing requiring some kind of identification to present to an elections office to prove who you say you are.”
Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain, countered that sending personal information in the mail is different from flashing an ID to a police officer or clerk at a liquor store — and should face tighter protections against identity theft.
“There’s a huge difference in mailing something in, filing it away and keeping it, than it is me just having it and showing it and the person looking at it and leaving,” Butler said. “So I think we need to stop confusing that [since] it’s not a correct statement.”
The bill passed by a 7-4 vote and now heads to the Senate floor.
A separate measure to end no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia is expected to come up for consideration in the committee early next week after clearing a subcommittee on Wednesday.
That bill, sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, would only allow registered Georgia voters who are age 75 and older, physically disabled, out-of-state or facing other limited circumstances to vote by mail.
State law since 2005 has let any Georgian registered to vote who wants to cast an absentee ballot do so without having to provide a reason for seeking the mail-in route.
The committee on Thursday also passed a bill by Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, that would create a new state elections supervisor tasked with training local election workers and punishing low-performing county officials. It passed by a party-line vote.
Also passing along party lines were two bills by state Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, that would shorten the time limit for local registrars to enter voting data into the state’s voter-history system and boost reporting requirements for the state’s election-results website, including the number of absentee and provisional ballots issued, cast and rejected.
A bill brought by Sen. Jen Jordan, D-Atlanta, was the only measure to pass unanimously on Thursday. It would let counties begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before Election Day, helping ease pressure on local elections officials to count mail-in ballots.
Other Republican-sponsored bills still awaiting consideration are measures to ban absentee-ballot drop boxes, end automatic voter registration for Georgians who receive new or renewed driver’s licenses, prohibit anyone except state and local elections officials and candidates from sending voters applications for mail-in ballots, and allow poll watchers to monitor vote tabulations more closely.
Lines were sparse outside the Cobb County Regional Library voter precinct through noon on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Bills aimed at scrapping Georgia’s no-excuse absentee voting law and to increase identification requirements to vote by mail advanced in the Georgia Senate Wednesday.
The four bills, which passed by party-line votes out of two separate Senate Ethics Committee subcommittees, marked the first push by top Republican state lawmakers to move a slate of election bills focused on changes to absentee voting.
The most far-reaching measure would halt registered Georgia voters’ ability to vote by mail without providing a reason, ending a practice widely used in the 2020 election cycle by millions of voters wary of exposure to COVID-19 at in-person polling places.
Another bill that passed Wednesday seeks to boost voter ID requirements for requesting and casting absentee ballots, marking changes favored by top-ranking Georgia Republicans including Gov. Brian Kemp and House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.
The bill would require registered voters to provide their date of birth, driver’s license number or other ID card number to request an absentee ballot, overhauling the state’s current system of verifying voter signatures on absentee request forms and ballot envelopes.
Two other measures that cleared Wednesday’s subcommittees would create a new state elections supervisor in charge of training local elections officials and restrict mobile polling places for use only when regular voting sites have lost power or been damaged.
The four bills now head to the full committee for consideration before potentially reaching the Senate floor.
The proposals address many claims former President Donald Trump and his allies made following the 2020 elections of widespread voter fraud that state officials and federal courts rejected as baseless. Trump lost the Nov. 3 election in Georgia to President Joe Biden by 11,779 votes.
Republican lawmakers have called many of the proposed changes necessary to restore voter confidence in the state’s election system and rein in mail-in voting after local elections officials complained they were overwhelmed during the 2020 cycle.
Their push to overhaul the absentee-voting process has been condemned by Democratic lawmakers who have framed the bills as attempts at voter suppression seeking to halt the momentum Democrats have built in recent elections.
Democratic lawmakers also slammed Republican state senators for holding Wednesday’s two subcommittee hearings at 7 a.m. – an unusually early hour for hearings in Georgia legislative sessions – and for not broadcasting the hearings via live-stream video for the public to watch.
“Clearly, we are trying to hide something from the public, the people we answer to,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta. “This gamesmanship is unacceptable.”
Subcommittee hearings in the state Senate “are not typically streamed unless we have approval from leadership,” said Andrew Allison, director of the Senate Press Office, which is in charge of broadcasting meetings during the session.
The Georgia Senate Republican Caucus also stressed subcommittee meetings are not live-streamed, though the state House of Representatives does broadcast live video of subcommittee meetings.
The Republican caucus punched back at Democrats, saying their complaints “misrepresent election integrity efforts” and bashing the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus for soliciting donations in a message on Twitter criticizing the election bills.
“Ethics complaints are being considered,” the Republican caucus said.
President Donald Trump rallied for Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ahead of the Senate runoff elections in Dalton, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Fulton County authorities have launched an investigation into alleged attempts to influence Georgia’s 2020 elections including a call former President Donald Trump made in January pressuring state election officials to overturn his losing results.
In a letter sent Wednesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis notified several state officials her office is investigating possible illegal acts of soliciting election fraud, false statements, conspiracy and racketeering stemming from the Nov. 3 general election.
Trump, who is not mentioned by name in the letter, made a series of widely publicized phone calls in the waning days of his tenure to Georgia officials including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse his 11,779-vote loss in the state to current President Joe Biden.
The call has since become part of a second round of impeachment proceedings leveled at Trump over alleged moves to influence the 2020 elections and incite violence among supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Willis, who defeated former longtime Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard last summer, said in her letter investigators would soon start issuing subpoenas ahead of empaneling a grand jury in March.
Her letter was sent to several state officials who had contact with subjects of the investigation including Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and members of the General Assembly. It was obtained by Capitol Beat News Service and other news outlets on Wednesday.
“I know we all agree that our duty demands that this matter be investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted in a manner that is free from any appearance of conflict of interest or political considerations,” Willis said.
“The Fulton County District Attorney’s office will conduct itself in a manner that will build public confidence in our elections, our law enforcement system and our judicial process.”
Trump’s claims of election fraud in Georgia were roundly rejected by federal courts and Republican officials including Raffensperger and Kemp, who quickly became targets of the former president’s anger.
Several Republican-led hearings were held in the General Assembly in the weeks after the Nov. 3 that allowed former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani – Trump’s personal attorney at the time – and others to air a host of fraud claims that went largely unchecked.
Despite lacking evidence, the fraud claims have prompted Republican state lawmakers to prepare a package of bills in the 2021 legislative session aimed at boosting requirements for Georgians to prove their identity to vote by mail, following record numbers of absentee ballots cast in the 2020 elections.
Georgia House lawmakers rehashed a bill Tuesday aimed at pushing back the deadline when voters can request and send in absentee ballots before elections.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, originally proposed barring county elections officials from mailing out absentee ballots fewer than 10 days before an election in Georgia.
The measure was tweaked Tuesday to set the deadline for voters to hand in applications for mail-in ballots at 5 p.m. on the second-to-last Friday before Election Day and to prohibit local election officials from accepting absentee ballots after the Wednesday before an election.
The House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which Fleming chairs, passed the bill on Tuesday for a second time with the changes included. It heads back to the House leaders who decide which bills reach the floor for full votes.
Fleming said he brought the bill back to the committee after state House Minority Whip David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, requested the revisions so that “he could support the bill and would encourage [others to do] the same.”
Fleming’s bill is the first of more than a dozen to start facing committee votes early in the 2021 legislative session as Republican lawmakers eye changes to absentee voting and voter ID laws after Democrats gained major statewide victories during the last election cycle.
Some of those proposals were echoed in a report the Georgia Republican Party released late Monday calling for stiffer voter ID laws and to end Georgians’ ability to vote by mail without giving a reason.
Democratic leaders dismissed the report, with U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams of Atlanta – who chairs the state Democratic Party – labeling it “a last-gasp attempt by an ever-more-extreme organization that is terrified of the power of Georgia voters.”
Georgia Democrats have pledged to fight Republican-backed bills proposing limits on who and how voters can cast absentee ballots, as well as other voting-rights issues. However, the changes to Fleming’s bill appeared to satisfy some Democratic state lawmakers who voted against it last week.
“I know this is a good-faith effort,” said state Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the General Assembly’s longest-serving member. “I believe we’re almost there. We’re much, much closer.”
The bill’s supporters argue it would ease pressure on county elections officials who are juggling early in-person voting and Election Day preparations on top of processing absentee-ballot applications. Voters would also know their ballots arrived in the mail on time before the polls close, according to supporters.
“I think this does a lot toward protecting the integrity of those who have voted by mail before so that those ballots can be handled with a good chain of custody,” said state Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta.
Opponents have warned the bill could spur longer lines at polling places and harm voters who requested absentee ballots weeks in advance but still had not received them in the mail by the new deadline.
Election-focused bills are taking center stage in the legislative session now underway after the 2020 election cycle saw Democrats carry Georgia in the presidential election and win both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats.
Democrats are framing Republican-sponsored election bills as attempts at voter suppression, accusing Republicans of changing the rules of the game to slow Georgia Democrats’ recent elections momentum.
Republicans have said they’re necessary to restore confidence after claims of voter fraud in the 2020 contests spurred distrust among many conservative voters in the state’s election integrity.
Joining Fleming as sponsors on the bill are House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton; Rep. Buddy DeLoach, R-Townsend; Rep. Rick Williams, R-Milledgeville; House Regulated Industries Committee Chairman Alan Powell, R-Hartwell; and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire.
