Fri. Feb 14th, 2025

From today’s ABC News:

Georgia is again one of the most crucial states in the election season where just a couple thousand votes could determine the outcome of the presidential election.

But as millions of voters prepare to cast their ballot, grassroots groups, election experts and others are sounding the alarm on controversial changes to election laws in the last couple of years that they say will discourage Georgians from voting.

From reductions in absentee ballot boxes to limitations to casting an emergency ballot on Election Day, voters will have fewer options and will be in a bind if their schedules change at the last minute due to the 2021 passing of S.B. 202.

“There’s been a lot of attention on some of the changes that S.B. 202 brought, like the one that didn’t allow water to election lines, but there are other aspects that aren’t really talked about where we are seeing a lot of concern for voters,” Stephanie Jackson Ali, the policy director for The New Georgia Project, a nonprofit voting rights group, told ABC News.

Andrew Garber, the counsel in the democracy program for nonpartisan think tank The Brennan Center for Justice, told ABC News that Georgia’s election law changes are among some of the harshest enacted since the 2020 election.

Garber noted that many of these restrictions were created with the intent of streamlining the election process, but ultimately added layers of red tape.

“It’s less about saying someone can’t vote but it’s about having the speed bumps that add up,” he said.

Ali and other voter advocates in the state, however, say the Georgians are preparing to tackle these roadblocks head-on and hitting the streets, web and other places to educate and inform people of their options.

Read the complete story here.

By Editor