Not enough evidence Georgia's election laws are racially discriminatory, federal judge rules
Voting stickers at a polling location during the runoff election in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. Georgia voters Tuesday will decide whether to send Senator Warnock, a Democratic incumbent, back to Washington for a full six-year ter
ATLANTA - Certain challenged provisions in Georgia's 2021 election law can stand, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
Judge J.P. Boulee wrote in a 62-page opinion that the plaintiffs did not prove the election law had a "racially discriminatory motivation."
Several civil rights groups challenged Georgia’s Senate Bill 202. Advocates say parts of the law make it harder for some Georgians to cast their ballots. The groups challenged five key points to the law.
The first was to the limiting of available drop boxes for absentee voting. The judge wrote that the data provided by the group did not demonstrate that a decrease in location "has a disparate impact on Black voters."
One of the more widely controversial portions of the law was about the ability to distribute food and water to voters. Civil rights groups argued that people of color are more likely to wait longer in line to vote. However, Judge Boulee wrote that "the Court is not convinced that voters would leave the line if not provided food, drinks and other gifts."
The court also ruled that the groups have not "provided sufficient evidence" that shortening the window to apply for an absentee ballot, prohibiting counting of certain provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct, and the requirement to show a driver’s license or other form of ID negatively impacts Black voters.
Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden to show that the law was passed with a discriminatory intent
Judge Boulee was seated in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia in 2019.
What was in S.B. 202?
The overhaul of the state’s election laws was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature after Democrats won the 2020 presidential contest and two Senate runoff elections in early 2021.
The law shortened the time period to request an absentee ballot and addressed several issues that had arisen during the pandemic election of 2020. To ease the process for voters concerned about COVID-19; the state created an online portal for mail ballot requests while counties deployed drop boxes.
After the 2020 election, state lawmakers said voters should be required to sign absentee ballot applications by hand, meaning they needed access to a printer. And while lawmakers established drop boxes as legal, they put limits on how many could be used by each jurisdiction and when those boxes would be accessible. This resulted in fewer drop boxes in the state’s most populous counties.
The new law also required a driver’s license or other ID rather than a signature for requesting a mailed ballot and shortened the state's runoff period from nine weeks to four weeks.
It also enforced penalties against people who provide food and water to voters waiting in line.
When the law was passed, civil rights organizations teamed up to challenge the changes, saying that they violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. The pushback got so great that Major League Baseball moved its All Star Game from Truist Park to Denver. However, turnout remained robust in the 2022 election in the state, leading Republicans to argue the backlash was overblown.
The Associated Press contributed to this report