GA’s top election official says federal election lawsuit is ‘not supported by facts’
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told McClatchy News Friday afternoon that a lawsuit alleging the state’s new election laws intended to deny Black residents the right to vote is “not supported by the facts.”
The 46-page lawsuit, filed Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice, seeks to overturn certain provisions of SB 202, a sweeping 98-page law that touches nearly every aspect of voting and elections administration in the state.
It’s the first major voting rights case filed by President Joe Biden’s justice department and comes just weeks after U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he would rededicate resources to protect voting rights. It’s the latest legal challenge to a law that some of its detractors have called “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The lawsuit is the newest development in the state’s election law saga dating back to the 2020 Presidential election. Following his defeat, President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans falsely alleged voter fraud tied to absentee ballots handed the state to Biden. State election officials, including Raffensperger, worked to debunk those claims.
Raffensperger, a Republican, pushed back against the voting rights allegations, saying the lawsuit is an attempt to chip away at “common sense” election integrity measures.
“I know at the end of the day (we’ll) make sure absentee voting is secure and that we have a secure method of identifying those voters that is objective,” he said. “Time and time again, when we’ve asked voters to support photo ID, they’ve said yes.”
The lawsuit and SB 202
Some of Georgia’s biggest changes to election law were tied to early in-person and absentee voting — topics both mentioned extensively in the federal lawsuit.
Residents requesting and submitting absentee ballots will now have to provide their driver’s license, state ID number or some other acceptable form to prove their identity. The lawsuit alleges Black Georgians are less likely than white residents to have that ID number needed.
Deadlines for absentee ballot applications are earlier. Under the new law, applications are due two Fridays (11 days) before Election Day instead of just one. The lawsuit alleges Black voters were more likely than white voters to request a ballot between four and 10 days before the election — something that is now not allowed.
The lawsuit also targets provisions that limit the use of ballot drop boxes first introduced in 2020, bans outside organizations from serving food and water to voters in line, and restricts third-party groups from mailing absentee ballot applications.
“Together, these obstacles will push Black voters toward in-person voting, where they will be more likely than white voters to confront long lines, and where, because of SB 202, they will face additional impediments to successfully casting a ballot that will be counted,” the lawsuit reads.
Raffesperger said the state’s new ID requirements for requesting a ballot by mail are the same as the requirement for first-time voters who registered by mail under the Help America Vote Act. The secretary of state has also previously pointed to provisions in the law that expand early voting access to 17 days by adding an additional Saturday and giving officials the option to open polls on Sunday.
In the months that followed the November presidential election, Raffensperger repeatedly said Georgia’s elections were safe and secure. No widespread fraud was found.
Asked why state election law needed to change if that was the case, the secretary of state said the new law ends the signature matching process — a subjective measure he’s wanted to get rid of since campaigning for the office in 2018.
“At the end of the day, we will prevail,” he said.
Kemp’s comments and the other lawsuits
Not long after Raffensperger’s interview, Gov. Kemp held a 13-minute news conference in Savannah calling the lawsuit a “politically motivated assault on the rule of law and our democracy” filed just days after the ‘For the People Act,’ — a federal bill that would have, among other things, expanded voting access — stalled in Congress.
“The DOJ lawsuit announced today is legally and constitutionally dead wrong,” Kemp said.
Georgia Public Broadcasting reports this is the eighth lawsuit claiming Georgia’s new election laws are discriminatory and unconstitutional and all of the cases are assigned to Trump-appointed Judge J.P. Boulee.
This story was originally published June 25, 2021 at 6:25 PM.