Georgia Election Law Gets Another Day in Court

Lawyers representing the state and the Republican National Committee asked a federal appellate court Wednesday to reverse a lower court order blocking two provisions of a controversial election reform law the GOP-controlled General Assembly passed in 2021.

A U.S. District Court judge granted a preliminary injunction in 2023 to civil rights and voting rights groups challenging a provision in Senate Bill 202 that prohibited volunteers from providing food and water to voters waiting in long lines within 150 feet of a polling place. The judge also threw out a second provision requiring voters to include their birthdate on absentee ballot envelopes.

The legislature’s Republican majorities passed Senate Bill 202 in the aftermath of a Democratic surge in 2020 that saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat to carry Georgia in a presidential election since 1992, followed in short order at the start of 2021 by the elections of Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the U.S. Senate.

Legislative Democrats opposed the bill, calling it an effort by the GOP to suppress the vote in Georgia.

On Wednesday, Georgia Solicitor General Stephen Petrany argued before the 11th District U.S. Court of Appeals that the 150-foot buffer zone established by the law was aimed at protecting voters in line at the polls from intimidation and to prevent voter fraud.

“States have been doing this for over 100 years, trying to protect voting lines,” he said. “Just the commotion … might be enough to dissuade some people from getting in line.”

But Davin Rosborough, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, said the volunteers who provided food and water to voters in line at polling places were not attempting to intimidate them. They simply were encouraging them to stay in line, he said.

“Long lines in Georgia are notorious, six hours, eight hours,” Rosborough said. “The intent of groups showing up and providing support to people standing in line was to deliver the message that participation (in voting) is important, despite the obstacles.”

Gilbert Dickey, a lawyer representing the Republican National Committee, told the appellate court panel the provision in Senate Bill 202 requiring voters to include their birthdate on absentee ballot envelopes was necessary to establish their identity.

“The state is entirely within its rights to confirm identification,” he said. The birthdate is a way to do that.”

But Laurence F. Pulgram, a lawyer for the NAACP, argued that throwing out an absentee ballot because the voter provided an incorrect birthdate or failed to provide a birthdate reduces the number of votes that end up being counted. He said 74% of the ballots rejected in Gwinnett County in 2022 were due to the birthdate requirement.

Pulgram said requiring birthdates on absentee ballot envelopes is unnecessary because voters already are required to establish their identification through the state’s photo ID requirement under another provision of Senate Bill 202.

“We don’t want anyone not qualified to vote to cast a ballot,” he said. “(But) if it’s not material, a (birthdate) error must be overlooked.”

Voting rights advocates and civil rights groups also are challenging other provisions of Senate Bill 202. Oral arguments in those cases are due to be heard this fall.