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Election Integrity Act of 2021

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Election Integrity Act of 2021

The Election Integrity Act of 2021, originally known as the Georgia Senate Bill 202, is a law in the U.S. state of Georgia overhauling elections in the state. It replaced signature matching requirements on absentee ballots with voter identification requirements, limits the use of ballot drop boxes, expands in-person early voting, bars officials from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms, reduces the amount of time people have to request an absentee ballot, increases voting stations or staff and equipment where there have been long lines, makes it a crime for outside groups to give free food or water to voters waiting in line, gives the Georgia General Assembly greater control over election administration, and shortens runoff elections, among other provisions.

The bill has generated significant controversy, described by critics as unprecedented and widespread Republican-led anti-democratic voting restrictions, with President Joe Biden labeling the bill "Jim Crow in the 21st century". Georgia governor Brian Kemp called criticism of the bill "disingenuous and completely false", and has argued that it differs little from voting laws in most other states. In June 2021, the Department of Justice sued Georgia over the law, which it alleges is racially discriminatory. In October 2023, a federal judge upheld multiple provisions of the law, citing a lack of evidence that the law is racially discriminatory.

Early voting turnout surged in the 2022 election cycle that followed the law's passage, with debate over the impact of the law on early voting. After the 2022 election cycle, polling from the University of Georgia found that 99% of Georgia voters did not have issues voting.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials in Georgia allowed the use of ballot drop boxes in the 2020 United States presidential election. The Election Integrity Act codifies the permanent use of drop boxes in general elections and mandates at least one box per county but also places some restrictions on their use. Most notably, it limits additional drop boxes to either one per 100,000 registered voters or one per voting location, whichever is fewer; this caps the number of drop boxes in the four counties making up the core of the Atlanta metro area (Fulton County, Cobb County, DeKalb County, and Gwinnett County) at 23 or fewer, depending on how many early-voting sites the counties provide, which was significantly fewer than the 94 drop boxes the counties used in the 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia. It also requires drop boxes to be located indoors in early voting locations and mandates that they only be accessible when those polling locations are open (in the 2020 election, drop boxes were available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week in a variety of locations), and closes drop boxes four days before Election Day, when turning absentee ballots into the US Post Office begins running the risk they will arrive at election offices late.

The bill requires absentee voters to provide their driver's license or state ID number, last four digits of their Social Security number, or a photo copy of an accepted form of identification when requesting an absentee ballot, such as a utility bill. This replaced requirements for absentee voters to provide their signatures, which were verified by signature matching conducted by poll workers.

The act shortens the amount of time voters have to request absentee ballots by over half, pushing the beginning of the time period voters can request an absentee ballot from six months before the election to three months before, and moving back the deadline to request an absentee from four days before Election Day to eleven days before. It also bars state and local officials from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request applications to registered voters.

The bill mandates three weeks of in-person early voting, including two Saturdays and the option of including two Sundays. This will expand early voting in rural counties. It also bans the use of mobile voting centers outside of declared disasters, which were utilized in Fulton County in the 2020 presidential election.

The bill gives the Georgia General Assembly greater control over election administration. Ordinarily, important administrative decisions like ballot disqualification and certification of results are made by county boards of elections. Under the new law, the State Board of Elections is empowered to replace county boards with an administrator chosen at the state level if the State Board deems a county board to be performing poorly. It simultaneously gives the Georgia General Assembly greater control over the State Board by replacing the Georgia Secretary of State as chair of the board, who is made an ex-officio, nonvoting member, with an official appointed by the legislature; the legislature already appoints two of the five seats on the board, so under the new law the legislature appoints a majority of the board. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this enables "state takeovers of local election offices", including deciding which ballots should be disqualified, and could "change the outcome of future elections, especially if they're as hotly contested as the 2020 presidential election between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump".

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