ATLANTA – Governor Brian Kemp signed the law into law on Tuesday additional changes In front of the election laws of Georgia 2024 presidential contest on the battlefield, including identifying possible reasons for disenrollment of voters when their eligibility is challenged.
Republican activists – feeding on debunked theories of a stolen election protested More than 100,000 voters in the state in recent years. Activists say they root out duplicate registrations and round up out-of-state voters.
Kemp’s signature bill – SB 189 – lists death, proof of voting or registration in another jurisdiction, a tax exemption showing a primary residence elsewhere or a non-residential address as possible reasons for removing voters from the rolls. The most controversial part is that the National Change of Address list can be reviewed without exception.
Proponents said the definition of probable cause would make the subpoena process more difficult. Opponents disputed this, saying the changes would allow more unwarranted attacks on voters, which would overwhelm election officials and disenfranchise legitimate voters. For example, people sometimes live at a place of work that is considered a non-residential address. Officials in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office say there are more reliable types of information, such as driver’s license information, available to confirm voter eligibility.
The Georgia bill also allows for summonses to be accepted and voters to be removed from the rolls up to 45 days before the election. The provision threatened lawsuits from liberal groups in part because federal law says states and provinces cannot make systematic changes to voting rolls within 90 days of a federal election.
The measure also states that homeless people should use the district voter registration office as their address instead of where they live. Opponents said it could make it harder for homeless citizens to vote because registered polling stations may be far away.
Fair Fight Action, founded by former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, condemned the signing of SB 189, calling the measure “a voter suppression bill that emboldens right-wing activists in their efforts to drive out black and brown voters. on rolls.”
“By signing SB 189 into law, Brian Kemp gave MAGA a gift to election deniers,” the group said in a statement.
Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, called the bill “a step backwards for voter rights and the right to vote.”
“We are committed to protecting the voters of Georgia and we will see the governor in court,” he said.
An email to Garrison Douglas, a spokesman for the governor’s office, was not immediately returned.
The bill also grants access to Georgia’s ballots to any political party that has qualified for the presidential election in at least 20 states or territories. The change could boost independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose campaign has spooked Democrats who worry they could draw support from President Joe Biden.
Other changes in the bill include removing Raffensperger from his position on the State Board of Elections. Kemp and Republican lawmakers previously removed Raffensperger from a voting position on the council.
Raffensperger is viewed by many Republicans as a particular foe, who have debunked theories that former President Donald Trump cost Georgia 16 electoral votes in 2020 because the Republican secretary of state forcefully defended election results that showed Biden winning.
Raffensperger and others lobbied Kemp, a former secretary of state, to veto the bill.
The bill further states that beginning July 1, 2026, the state can no longer use a type of barcode called a QR code to count ballots created on state ballot marking devices. That’s how votes are now counted, but opponents say voters don’t trust QR codes because they can’t read them. Instead, the bill states that ballots must be read using text or human-readable symbols such as machine-generated filled bubbles.
The bill also requires counties to report all ballot results one hour after the polls close. It also allows states to use paper ballots in elections with fewer than 5,000 registered voters, though that change won’t take effect until 2025.
Kemp on Tuesday vetoed a separate election bill that would have banned political contributions by foreign nationals and imposed additional registration requirements on agents of foreign executives. The governor noted that such donations are already prohibited by federal law, and he said some of the registration requirements were not intended by the bill’s sponsor.