State Rep. John LaHood (R-Valdosta) speaks in favor of ballot scanner election bill SB 189 on the House floor at the Capitol in Atlanta on Thursday, March 28, the last day of Congress. do. 2024. Lahoud is the bill's sponsor in the House.
Arvin Temkar/AP
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Arvin Temkar/AP
State Rep. John LaHood (R-Valdosta) speaks in favor of ballot scanner election bill SB 189 on the House floor at the Capitol in Atlanta on Thursday, March 28, the last day of Congress. do. 2024. Lahoud is the bill's sponsor in the House.
Arvin Temkar/AP
ATLANTA — Georgia's General Assembly on Thursday approved new rules for disputing voters and qualifying for the state's presidential vote that could affect the battleground state's 2024 presidential election.
Senate Bill 189 passed the House by a vote of 101-73 and the Senate by a vote of 33-22 and was sent to Governor Brian Kemp for his signature or veto.
Georgia's Republican Party has repeatedly floated election changes following false claims by former President Donald Trump and other Republicans that Georgia lost 16 electors to fraud in 2020.
The bill would give access to Georgia's ballot to political parties that qualify for presidential votes in at least 20 states or territories. The change could be a boost for independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but it also worries Democrats that his campaign could steal support from President Joe Biden. ing.
The bill also spells out what constitutes “good cause” to support a challenge to a voter's eligibility that could lead to removal from the voter rolls. If someone is deceased, votes or registers to vote in another jurisdiction, applies for a homestead exemption on property taxes in another jurisdiction, or registers at a non-resident address. If so, a possible cause exists.
“We have a very simple definition of probable cause,” said Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Max Burns, R-Sylvania.
Democrats denounced the provision, saying it would further enable baseless attacks on voters, overwhelm election officials and disenfranchise citizens. More than 100,000 voters have been challenged in recent years by Republican activists who claim to root out registration fraud, and some large Georgia counties have filed thousands of challenges at a time.
Rep. Saira Draper, an Atlanta Democrat, said the provision is based on “lies and fear-mongering.”
“You know our policy is not to negotiate with terrorists,” she said. “I wish we had a policy of not creating laws to appease conspiracy theorists.”
Democratic Rep. Luwa Lonman of Duluth said this bill and others like it undermine trust in the American electoral system, the bedrock of our democracy.
“We have a responsibility to push back against lies, not legislate them,” she said.
Republican Rep. Victor Anderson of Cornelia pointed to a provision that deems someone's name on the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address List insufficient to sustain a voter challenge. defended the clause. He also cited a provision that postpones any objections filed within 45 days of the election.
“Colleagues, I contend that our bill actually makes the challenge process more difficult,” he said.
House Government Affairs Committee Chairman John LaHood (R-Valdosta) said the bill would increase confidence in elections.
“What this bill does is ensure that your legal vote counts,” he said.
The bill would also require counties to report the results of all absentee ballots by one hour after polls close and allow counties to use paper ballots in elections with fewer than 5,000 people registered. However, this change will not take effect until 2025.
The measure also says that starting July 1, 2026, states will no longer be able to use a type of barcode called a QR code to tabulate ballots created with state ballot-marking devices. This is how votes are currently counted, but opponents say voters don't trust the QR codes because they can't read them. Instead, the bill says ballots must be read using machine-generated text or human-readable marks, such as filled-in bubbles.
State lawmakers have already mandated several statewide election audits, added security features to ballots, limited poll workers to U.S. citizens, and reduced the number of voting machines. A bill containing the following has been sent to the governor.
