How Georgia’s voting legislation works

Absentee poll drop bins are allowed, however with tight restrictions that restrict their usefulness.

Georgia’s voting legislation permits drop bins in the event that they’re situated inside early voting places, out there solely throughout in-person voting hours, and shut down when early voting ends the Friday earlier than an election. Each county is required to put in no less than one drop field, stored beneath “fixed surveillance” by an election official, police officer or licensed safety guard.

The variety of drop bins in every county is capped at one for each 100,000 lively registered voters or the variety of early voting places. Which means the variety of drop field places in metro Atlanta’s 4 core counties will shrink from 111 to 23.

Drop bins have been used for the primary time in Georgia in 2020 beneath emergency rules the State Election Board authorised through the coronavirus pandemic. Drop bins have been monitored by video, and election officers reported no indication of ballot-stuffing or fraud.

The emergency guidelines expired after the 2020 elections and 2021 runoffs. The brand new voting legislation prevented the opportunity of the principles being renewed or made everlasting.

The speed of absentee ballots rejected as a result of they arrived after election day plummeted within the presidential election, partly as a result of drop bins helped voters keep away from postal delays.

Practically two-thirds of absentee ballots solid within the presidential election have been for Biden.

Voters might want to submit a driver’s license quantity, state ID quantity or different documentation when each requesting and returning absentee ballots. The new ID requirements substitute a system of verifying voters by evaluating their signatures with these stored on file, usually from after they registered to vote.

Critics of the brand new ID necessities say they are going to make it tougher to vote for the three% of registered Georgia voters who lack an ID quantity related to their registration data. They would want to submit different documentation when requesting an absentee poll, equivalent to a utility invoice, financial institution assertion, paycheck, passport or army ID.

The ID necessities are completely different when returning a accomplished poll. At that time, voters can write the final 4 digits of their Social Safety quantity in the event that they lack a driver’s license or state ID.

Supporters of the ID necessities say they’ll be extra goal than signature comparisons performed by county election employees. An audit of absentee ballots in Cobb County discovered zero fraudulent signatures amongst 15,000 reviewed by investigators.

All Georgia voters will have the ability to vote on two Saturdays earlier than normal elections and primaries, however weekend voting hours earlier than runoffs shall be decreased.

The voting legislation requires a second Saturday of early voting statewide earlier than normal and first elections, which expands early voting hours for rural, Republican-leaning counties that didn’t beforehand provide two Saturdays.

About 60% of registered voters in Georgia already stay in counties that had two Saturdays throughout three weeks of early voting final 12 months.

The extra Saturday means Georgia has 16 assured days of early voting earlier than every normal or major election.

Sunday voting will stay non-compulsory, with county election places of work given the authority to resolve whether or not to open voting places on as much as two Sundays.

Early voting shall be decreased earlier than runoffs. As an alternative of three weeks of early voting, SB 202 requires one week of early voting, or it may well start “as quickly as attainable” after a normal election. The legislation requires runoffs to be held 4 weeks after elections as an alternative of 9, leaving much less time for election officers to print ballots and take a look at tools earlier than early voting can start.

For all elections, the default early voting hours are set at 9 a.m. to five p.m., and county election officers can select longer hours, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. That’s a change from earlier years, when early voting instances have been required “throughout regular enterprise hours,” with out defining these hours.

Volunteers will not be allowed to offer free pizza or water to voters in strains, a few of which lasted three hours or extra through the 2020 major election.

The legislation bans distributing meals and drinks to voters inside 150 ft of the outer fringe of a polling place or inside 25 ft of any voter standing in line. Ballot employees shall be allowed to put in self-service water receptacles for voters ready in line.

Lengthy strains have the potential to dissuade voters, with research exhibiting that in current elections, a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals nationwide declined to solid a poll somewhat than wait.

Handing out water is now thought-about the identical form of offense as different cash or presents that might affect a voter’s selection. It’s punishable as a misdemeanor, which comes with as much as a 12 months in jail and a $1,000 nice.

The window to request absentee ballots begins later and ends sooner.

Voters shall be unable to request an absentee poll till 78 days earlier than election day, down from the 180-day interval beforehand allowed.

The final alternative to return an absentee poll utility is 11 days earlier than election day. In previous elections, voters may request absentee ballots till the Friday earlier than an election.

Voters have been much less more likely to get their ballots in on time in the event that they requested them near the election, in accordance with election knowledge. About 52% of absentee ballots requested within the final 11 days earlier than Nov. 3 have been returned, in contrast with 75% of ballots requested beforehand.

Fulton County used two voting buses, which served greater than 112,000 voters. This bus was arrange at Wolf Creek Library after the library misplaced energy throughout a tropical storm. Senate Invoice 202 now restricts voting buses to emergencies declared by the governor. (STEVE SCHAEFER / SPECIAL TO THE AJC)

Credit score: Steve Schaefer

Credit score: Steve Schaefer

The innovation of voting buses, utilized in Fulton County to journey to varied websites throughout early voting final 12 months, gained’t proceed in future elections.

Fulton, dwelling to town of Atlanta, was the one county within the state to convey voting cubicles to voters beneath a statute that allowed “moveable or movable polling services.” The voting buses traveled all through the county, showing in numerous places based mostly on a schedule posted on-line.

Over 112,000 voters solid ballots on Georgia’s voting machines inside Fulton’s two voting buses.

SB 202 now restricts voting buses to emergencies declared by the governor, close to polling locations that have been affected by disasters equivalent to storms and energy outages.

When voters confirmed up on the unsuitable county polling place, they have been nonetheless permitted to solid a provisional poll. Election officers counted their votes in all races they have been eligible to take part in, together with for federal, state and countywide candidates. Votes for candidates in races exterior their dwelling district weren’t counted.

Election employees counted 3,357 provisional ballots solid within the unsuitable precinct in November’s election, in accordance with state election knowledge. These ballots would have been discarded if SB 202 had been in impact on the time.

The brand new voting legislation will disqualify provisional ballots fully in the event that they’re solid within the unsuitable precinct. None of these votes shall be counted, aside from ballots solid after 5 p.m. on election day, when voters have little time to drive to their neighborhood precinct. Voters went to the inaccurate precinct as a result of their outdated voting location closed or the county merged polling locations.

There have been 214 precinct closures in Georgia between 2012 and 2018, in accordance with an evaluation by The Atlanta Journal-Structure.

About 63% of provisional ballots have been solid for Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia.

Senate Invoice 202 prohibits voting organizations and governments from sending repeated absentee poll functions, and state and native governments are banned from mailing any unsolicited absentee request types in any respect.

Mailboxes will not overflow with absentee ballot request forms from organizations encouraging Georgians to solid an absentee poll.

Voting organizations and governments shall be prohibited from sending repeated absentee poll functions, in accordance with the state’s voting legislation. And state and native governments are banned from mailing any unsolicited absentee request types in any respect.

Underneath the legislation, teams are solely allowed to ship absentee poll functions to Georgians who haven’t already requested a poll or voted. The restriction on mailings arose after voters complained that they acquired a number of letters asking them to request absentee ballots, even after that they had already finished so.

Organizations must test public election data to ensure they aren’t sending repeated poll request types to voters. They face a $100 nice for every duplicate absentee poll utility that’s processed by county election places of work, in accordance with the legislation.

A lawsuit filed by voter engagement organizations, the Voter Participation Heart and the Heart for Voter Info, alleges the legislation infringes on their First Modification free speech rights, making it tough to run vote-by-mail utility packages.

Any voter can challenge the eligibility of as many citizens of their county or metropolis as they need, in accordance with SB 202.

Which means a voter in Fulton County can be empowered to problem all of the county’s 860,000 voters if she or he chooses to take action. Challenges have to be made in writing and specify the grounds for the problem.

This provision of the legislation arose after the Texas-based group True the Vote challenged 360,000 Georgia voters in December, an try to disqualify ballots of voters based mostly on the suspicion that they could have moved.

Bipartisan county election boards discovered few illegitimate voters afterward, rejecting a couple of dozen ballots statewide after Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs.

Georgia’s new voting legislation allows comparable challenges to voters’ {qualifications} to change into extra commonplace in future elections.

Through the June 2020 major election, some voters in Fulton County waited so long as 2-3 hours in strains equivalent to this one at Park Tavern in Midtown. Though SB 202 addresses lengthy strains at polling websites, the brand new guidelines apply solely to normal elections and never primaries. (JOHN SPINK/JSPINK@AJC.COM)

Credit score: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Credit score: JOHN SPINK / AJC

If voters have to attend in line for greater than an hour earlier than checking in to vote in a normal election, county election officers should scale back the variety of voters assigned to that precinct to not more than 2,000.

That would imply counties must open further voting websites or reassign voters to different voting places for the following election. Every precinct supervisor shall be required to measure wait instances thrice a day on election day.

The legislation applies to normal elections, such final fall’s presidential election, when common wait instances statewide have been about three minutes. The legislation doesn’t cowl primaries, such because the June election when voters, particularly in Fulton County, suffered extreme wait times.

Voting rights teams opposed splitting giant precincts, saying voters would nonetheless go to their outdated precincts the place they’d solely have the ability to solid provisional ballots, which the legislation says gained’t be counted besides after 5 p.m. on election day.

Vote-counting took longer within the 2020 presidential election due to excessive turnout and file numbers of absentee ballots, particularly in metro areas that lean closely Democratic. Consequently, rump led on election evening however fell behind as extra votes have been counted within the following days.

The outcomes of future elections shall be reported sooner.

After polls shut on election day, employees should depend ballots by the evening and into the next day, in accordance with the voting legislation. They’re not allowed to cease till they’ve tallied all votes solid on election day, throughout early voting and by absentee poll. (Counties are allowed extra time to depend provisional and absentee ballots returned by army and abroad voters, which don’t need to be acquired till three days after election day.)

If a county fails to complete counting absentee ballots by 5 p.m. on the day after an election, it may face penalties. The State Election Board may launch a efficiency evaluate, step one towards a state takeover of that county’s elections operations.

As well as, election employees can start opening and scanning absentee ballots two weeks earlier than election day, however no outcomes may be tabulated till polls shut.

Election officers should certify election outcomes by the Monday after election day, 4 days earlier than beforehand allowed by state legislation.

Each in-person and absentee ballots have to be printed on “safety paper” that features options that can be utilized to authenticate it.

However poll scanners gained’t have the ability to detect whether or not ballots are printed on safety paper, which means it would require human inspection to discover a doubtlessly fraudulent poll. Election officers haven’t discovered counterfeit ballots within the presidential election.

The safety paper is estimated to value about 25 cents per poll, roughly double the price of a daily paper poll. That might quantity to a complete value of about $1.25 million for an election like November’s, with 5 million voters.

Anybody who desires to examine ballots solid in Georgia will have the ability to take a look at footage of them.

Whereas the ballots themselves can be public, how individuals voted would stay confidential, as required by the Georgia Structure.

SB 202 makes scanned poll pictures a public file. The unique paper ballots themselves are stored beneath seal by county superior courtroom clerks.

Poll pictures are generated when voters deposit their ballots into scanning machines and when election employees scan absentee ballots. These pictures are saved on reminiscence playing cards.

The legislation additionally requires the secretary of state’s workplace to create a pilot program to put up poll pictures on-line.

A bunch of ballot watchers observe a hand tally of presidential race leads to Savannah as a part of a state audit in November. The brand new voting legislation requires coaching for ballot watchers and grants them extra entry to the counting. Critics say that it weakens protections towards intimidation and harassment. (AJC Picture/Stephen B. Morton)

Credit score: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Structure

Credit score: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Structure

Political events dispatched groups of ballot watchers to observe election employees as they tallied ballots late into the evening. Some ballot watchers complained that they weren’t allowed to get shut sufficient, and election employees stated the watchers have been too intrusive.

Republican Celebration ballot watchers claimed that ballots weren’t dealt with accurately, resulting in a lawsuit {that a} decide rapidly dismissed, discovering that they had no proof.

Georgia’s voting legislation states that every ballot watcher have to be allowed to “pretty observe” election procedures at poll tabulation facilities. Ballot watchers shall be required to undergo coaching to make sure they know their duties and election legal guidelines. Coaching have to be supplied by political events or candidates.

Throughout the nation, legislators in 20 states have launched payments to increase the powers of ballot watchers, a few of which weaken protections towards voter intimidation and harassment, in accordance with the Brennan Center for Justice.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger held a press convention in June to spotlight complaints about Fulton County’s election issues. Senate Invoice 202 permits the State Election Board to interchange county election boards after conducting a efficiency analysis. (Mark Niesse / mark.niesse@ajc.com)

The State Election Board will have the ability to replace county election boards after conducting a efficiency analysis.

County commissions or state legislators from a county may request a efficiency evaluate, which might be performed by a three-person panel appointed by the State Election Board. After the evaluate is accomplished, the State Election Board may resolve to put in new administration.

A short lived county election superintendent would have broad authority to certify elections, rent and hearth workers, resolve on voting places, handle absentee ballots, spend tax cash and set coverage.

Opponents of state election takeovers fear in regards to the potential for abuse by the State Election Board, which is able to embody 4 Republicans and one Democrat. The legislation eliminated Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rejected Trump’s claims of voter fraud, from the board.

Massive counties with Democratic majorities, equivalent to Fulton County, may change into easy targets based mostly on their historical past of lengthy strains and gradual reporting of outcomes.

The legislation forbids native governments from spending tax cash on attorneys to defend themselves to the State Election Board.

A hotline for voters to report election issues will ring on the lawyer normal’s workplace, which prosecutes crimes, somewhat than the secretary of state’s workplace, which oversees elections.

The telephone line shall be required to take complaints about voter intimidation and unlawful election actions, in accordance with SB 202. Nameless complaints are allowed.

Then the lawyer normal’s workplace will resolve whether or not to launch investigations or prosecutions.

Voting rights organizations have stated the hotline could possibly be misused for political acquire, to report on voters who’re doing nothing unsuitable.

For years, the secretary of state’s workplace has additionally run a voter hotline, as has the Attorneys’ Committee on Civil Rights Underneath Regulation, which manages the Election Safety hotline.

State Farm Enviornment held early voting for Fulton County residents in October. The positioning was donated privately, which is able to not be allowed by the brand new voting legislation. Senate Invoice 202 states that county election officers are prohibited from accepting any funding or presents, besides from native, state or federal governments. (Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com)

Credit score: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com

Credit score: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com

After corporations and nonprofits chipped in to assist run elections through the coronavirus pandemic, Georgia legislators restricted outside expenditures.

That call may curtail contributions, together with the donation of State Farm Enviornment throughout early voting and over $20 million from the Heart for Tech and Civic Life, a gaggle funded by Mark Zuckerberg and philanthropist Priscilla Chan, who’s married to Zuckerberg. The cash paid for staffing, hazard pay, absentee poll postage prices, tools, voter outreach and private protecting gear.

County election officers are prohibited from accepting any funding or presents besides from native, state or federal governments, in accordance with SB 202.

Lawmakers supporting the restrictions stated taxpayers and their governments ought to fund elections, not exterior organizations. In addition they questioned whether or not funding was given pretty between majority Republican and Democratic counties, each of which acquired exterior cash, with bigger counties getting probably the most monetary assist.

However the cash and reward restrictions have a giant loophole.

The legislation doesn’t ban exterior donations to county governments, which may then allocate assets to their election boards. The legislation solely impacts direct funds to election places of work.

Runoffs shall be held 4 weeks after normal elections as an alternative of 9 weeks later, a change made after Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate misplaced runoffs in January.

The fast turnaround reduces time for early and absentee voting. Only one week of early voting shall be required as an alternative of three weeks in different elections. And there shall be a decent window to request and return absentee ballots earlier than election day.

Georgia had such a protracted delay earlier than runoffs due to a federal judge’s 2013 ruling that Individuals residing overseas didn’t have sufficient time to mail their ballots, a call that resulted within the nine-week interval earlier than runoffs.

The state’s voting legislation will get across the nine-week look forward to runoffs by instituting instant-runoff voting for Georgians residing abroad and within the army.

Underneath instant-runoff voting, abroad and army voters will rank their decisions in every multicandidate race after they return their ballots earlier than a normal election. If a runoff is important, votes for the highest-ranked remaining candidates will then be tallied, with out abroad and army voters having to vote once more.

By no means once more will there be the form of 20-candidate, multiparty particular election that compelled Republican Kelly Loeffler right into a runoff towards Democrat Raphael Warnock.

Particular elections will now have partisan major elections in Georgia, with the nominees of the Democratic and Republican events dealing with off towards one another and any certified third-party rivals in a follow-up election.

A partisan major final 12 months would have compelled Loeffler right into a Republican Celebration matchup together with her chief rival, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, who completed in third place in November. Warnock confronted competitors inside his social gathering from Democrats with decrease profiles.

Backers of the legislation stated every political social gathering’s voters ought to have the ability to select their candidates.

No candidate got here near successful a majority within the November particular election, forcing a runoff in January that Warnock gained by 2 proportion factors.