Putting ‘Cologne on Jim Crow’: Georgia GOP lawmakers head for new voting restrictions

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Crucial action comes this week. The state’s GOP-controlled General Assembly has just five days of legislative work left on its schedule before the March 31 adjournment. House and Senate lawmakers say they plan to finalize changes to electoral bills in the coming days.

An omnibus bill that a key House committee is expected to pass on Monday would impose identification requirements for absentee voting, limit the use of ballot boxes and disqualify most provisional ballots cast outside the ward voters. It would also make it an offense to provide food or soft drinks to voters while they are in line.

Of particular concern to voting rights activists in the state: Measures that remove the authority of the elected secretary of state and grant state officials broad rights, including the ability to replace local election officials.

“We are facing an emergency,” Hillary Holley, organizing director of Fair Fight Action, told CNN.

Despite last-minute changes to the package to further preserve early weekend voting, “this bill continues to be nothing but voter suppression,” said Cliff Albright, the co-founder from the Black Voters Matter Fund. “The recent changes are nothing more than putting some makeup and cologne on Jim Crow.”

His group is planning a rally at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Atlanta on Monday to pressure companies to oppose the package, as part of a planned week of action.

High stakes

Georgia, a battlefield state, is at the forefront of efforts by the country’s Republican-controlled legislatures to impose tough new restrictions on voting. Georgia’s proposed voting limits come ahead of high-stakes races for governor and the U.S. Senate next year.

A February tally by the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice followed bills that would restrict voting in 43 states. More states have joined the list since then, with new bills recently landing in North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Republican lawmakers across the state have gone out of their way as needed to shore up a system battered by fraud allegations. A preamble to the House bill said it was designed “to address voters’ lack of confidence in the electoral system on all sides of the political spectrum” and to promote “uniformity of the vote.”

Watch these states as the GOP tries to make voting harder
Former President Donald Trump and his allies fueled false claims that he lost the election due to fraud. There is no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome of elections in Georgia or elsewhere. President Joe Biden’s nearly 12,000-vote victory in the state was reaffirmed in three separate ballot counts.

Voting rights activists say the planned measures would limit access to the ballot for large sections of Georgia’s increasingly diverse population.

Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said identity requirements for obtaining mail-in ballots would hurt older voters, those on low incomes and students as they are all less likely to have a. driver’s license or other forms of identification required, such as passports or a state or federal photo ID.

Georgia currently uses signature matching in postal voting, which Republican lawmakers say is not a reliable way to verify voter identity. A correspondence audit in Cobb County, Georgia, following the general election last November, found “no fraudulent absenteeism ballots with a 99% confidence threshold,” according to the secretary’s office. ‘State of Georgia.

The Georgia House bill would require voters to provide their driver’s license numbers or state identification numbers and other identifying information, such as their date of birth, on ballots.

Georgia Republicans “say the vote should be for the 1% and … for the privileged,” Dennis told CNN.

Last minute changes

In recent days, Georgian lawmakers have backed down on a provision that critics say unfairly targeted black voters. Republicans now say they plan to preserve Sunday’s early voting as part of the omnibus voting package the House committee will consider this week. The change under discussion would specifically allow Georgians to vote two Sundays during the state’s early voting window. A previous bill aimed to allow only one optional voting day on Sunday.

Voting rights activists had criticized the limit as an attack on “souls at the polls” – programs that help boost turnout among black worshipers, a key Democratic constituency. And a CNN analysis of voting patterns in the November general election found the measure eliminated days when a disproportionate number of black voters cast ballots.
Republican Barry Fleming, the architect of the voting restrictions that cross Georgia House, also indicated that efforts to repeal the absentee vote without excuse are now dead. His package does not include the repeal passed by the Georgia Senate earlier this month. A record 1.3 million Georgians voted by post in the general elections last November.
Why the effects of Republican efforts to limit the vote are unclear

Fleming’s office did not immediately respond to the request for comment. At a meeting last month, Fleming said the bills aim to resolve the “controversy” surrounding the recent election.

“If you have been following the election issue in Georgia, you will know that there has been a controversy regarding our electoral system. And I think the goal of our process here should be an attempt to restore our public’s confidence in our elections. Fleming said Feb. 18 as his committee began its work.

Georgia Republican Senator Max Burns, who chairs the Senate Election Bill Panel, drafted a companion bill, which was released on Friday afternoon. His committee is expected to resume it on Monday with a vote on Tuesday, Burns told CNN.

In a meeting on Wednesday, Burns said his version “would address some of the issues and some of the challenges that we have.” He did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend.

New powers

Both measures give state legislators greater authority over elections.

A provision of the House bill launches the elected secretary of state as chairman of the state election board. The General Assembly would choose the new president, giving lawmakers three out of five appointments to the board.

Current Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger drew the ire of the former president last year when he rebuffed Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud in the state had contributed to his defeat. (Trump’s request for Raffensperger to “find” votes is now under investigation in Fulton County, Ga.)

The House package would also grant the state election council the right to suspend both local election superintendents and local election boards and appoint a new official to step in as temporary superintendent.

Voting rights activists say this goes against the tradition of local control and could lead to a scenario in which state officials intervene to prevent a county from certifying its election results.

In his attempt to reverse his defeat, Trump not only targeted election officials, but also contacted members of an obscure election committee in Wayne County, Mich., Tasked with certifying Biden’s victory in the area. Detroit.

“Imagine if they had that power in the last election,” Albright said of the new authority envisaged by the Georgia package. “This is the provision that can take precedence over all others in this bill.”

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