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After an unsuccessful 2021 try by some Republican lawmakers to finish no-excuse absentee voting, the Georgia Election Board is recommending limits for voting by mail.
The proposal, submitted by board member and Republican Social gathering appointee Janice Johnston, asks state lawmakers to contemplate laws ending or amending no-excuse absentee voting. No-excuse absentee voting permits voters to solid ballots by mail for any motive.
In accordance with the State Election Board’s proposal, the board has obtained quite a few complaints involving absentee poll requests, duplicate voting by absentee poll, failure to mail or ship absentee ballots in a well timed method, defects within the dealing with course of and recording of absentee ballots and the looks of counterfeit absentee ballots, which has undermined “public religion and integrity of elections in Georgia.”
Georgia is considered one of practically 30 states that offers voters the choice to vote absentee-by-mail with out an excuse and has allowed such for greater than 15 years.
Below the board’s proposal, absentee voting would revert to pre-2009 necessities when solely sure folks had been allowed to vote by mail, corresponding to those that can be absent from their precinct through the elections, have a bodily incapacity, or caregivers of somebody with a incapacity.
Voters 75 years or older or voters required to stay on responsibility of their place of employment for the safety of the well being, life or security of the general public can be allowed to vote by mail.
Republican lawmakers tried to finish no-excuse voting as a part of the state’s election overhaul invoice (SB 202) in 2021 following the contentious 2020 presidential election through which Democrat Joe Biden defeated incumbent Republican Donald Trump. Two Democrats additionally gained the state’s U.S. Senate seats in runoffs following the 2020 common election.
Unfounded claims of voter fraud, largely associated to mail-in ballots, spewed after the election, although audits and recounts confirmed outcomes of the state’s elections.
“The notion of some folks is that you just lose chain-of-custody with that sort of voting,” stated College of Georgia Political Science Professor Trey Hood III. “If you happen to go vote in individual, the poll by no means leaves the voter’s palms earlier than it goes into the tabulator. With absentee-by-mail voting, it’s going via the mail or somebody’s delivering it. So there’s no proof, particularly even for 2020 in Georgia or different states, that there was widespread fraud, however that’s the notion some folks have.”
Whereas different election-related modifications tightening voter ID and absentee poll guidelines had been accepted alongside celebration strains in 2021, proposals to finish no-excuse mail-in voting had been axed every week earlier than the legislative session ended amid debate from voter advocacy teams and Democrats.
Joseph Kirk, elections supervisor in Bartow County, northwest of Atlanta, stated administering and counting absentee ballots can stretch election staffs skinny, nevertheless, SB 202 has supplied means for election employees to reduce alternatives of fraud and errors with absentee ballots.
SB 202 permits election employees to start counting ballots earlier than Election Day. Earlier than the enactment of SB 202, absentee poll counting may solely start on Election Day.
“This helped us report outcomes quicker on election night time,” Kirk stated. “It’s helped take some stress off of counties that had issues getting 1000’s and 1000’s of items of paper envelopes processed in a brief period of time and allow them to unfold that operation out at a cushty tempo.”
Georgians broke data with 1.3 million ballots solid by absentee-by-mail amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Nonetheless, many election officers stated voting by mail has considerably declined to close pre-pandemic ranges in subsequent years.
Kirk stated it’s unlikely that a lot of voters will resort to absentee-by-mail voting as seen in 2020. Within the 2022 mid-term elections, fewer than 205,000 mail-in ballots had been solid in Georgia.
If droves of mail-in ballots are solid, Kirk stated that election staffs ought to be outfitted to dispel considerations of those that help getting rid of no-excuse absentee voting by way of safety and protocols that had been accepted in SB 202.
“I help any possibility we give the voters that’s secure and safe for them to move their poll and take part within the election,” he stated. “Something we will do to assist encourage people to vote or make it simpler to vote is a good suggestion. and voting by mail is a service that now we have supplied to individuals who actually want it. Reasonably than looking for the quantity of fraud we’re OK with, why don’t we simply work on having a secure course of that everyone can use that desires to.”
Hood predicts that altering or getting rid of no-excuse absentee voting would have minimal have an effect on on the result of most elections.
“I actually don’t suppose it will impression issues all that a lot as a result of folks that may actually need to make use of an absentee-by-mail poll as a result of they’re aged or disabled or these sorts of issues nonetheless have that possibility,” he stated. “There’s some small proportion of people that might actually prefer to vote absentee-by-mail who wouldn’t fall into a kind of excuse classes that must swap and vote both early in-person or in individual on Election Day on the precinct.”
The state election board’s proposal shall be open for public remark at its subsequent enterprise assembly, which is but to be scheduled. The Georgia Basic Meeting’s 2024 legislative session begins Jan. 8.
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