With 2024 presidential contest looming, Georgia governor signs new election changes into law
ATLANTA (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation Tuesday that makes additional changes to Georgia's election laws ahead of the 2024 presidential contest in the battleground state, including defining probable causes for removing voters from the rolls when their eligibility is challenged.
Republican activists — fueled by debunked theories of a stolen election — have challenged more than 100,000 voters in the state in recent years. The activists say they are rooting out duplicate records and removing voters who have moved out of state.
The bill Kemp signed into law — SB 189 — lists death, evidence of voting or registering in another jurisdiction, a tax exemption indicating a primary residence elsewhere, or a nonresidential address as probable causes for removing voters from the rolls. Most controversially, it says the National Change of Address list can be considered, though not exclusively.
Supporters have said the probable cause definition would make the challenge process more difficult. Opponents have disputed that, saying the changes would enable more baseless attacks on voters that would overwhelm election administrators and disenfranchise legitimate voters. For example, people sometimes live at a place of business, which would be considered a nonresidential address. Officials with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office say there are more reliable types of information, such as driver’s license data, to confirm a voter’s eligibility.
The Georgia bill also allows challenges to be accepted and voters removed from the rolls up until 45 days before an election. That provision in part has prompted the threat of lawsuits from liberal groups because federal law says states and counties can’t make systematic changes to voting rolls within 90 days of a federal election.
The measure also says homeless people must use the county voter registration office as their address instead of where they live. Opponents have said that could make it harder for homeless citizens to cast ballots because their registered polling place might be far away.
Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group founded by former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, slammed the signing of SB 189, calling the measure a “voter suppression bill that emboldens right-wing activists in their efforts to kick Black and brown voters off the rolls.”
“By signing SB 189 to become law, Brian Kemp delivered a gift to MAGA election deniers,” the group said in a statement.
Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, called the bill a “step back for voters' rights and voting access.”
"We are committed to protecting Georgia voters and will see the governor in court,” she said in a statement.
An email to a spokesman for the governor's office, Garrison Douglas, was not immediately returned.
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