Georgia’s record early voting, post-2020 stress tests helped to defuse election rules overhaul
Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, left, campaigns on Nov. 2, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina, while the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, speaks to a crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Nov. 4, 2024. (Getty photos, of Harris by Justin Sullivan and of Trump by Chip Somodevilla)
Democrats and Republicans in Georgia and across the country have fought for four years in the courts and in Washington, D.C. over changes to election rules enacted by the state's GOP Legislature following the election of Joe Biden in 2020.
A controversial rule adopted in 2021 establishing a 25-foot zone prohibiting the distribution of bottled water and snacks to voters in line turned Georgia into a laughing stock on late night television. A federal judge struck down the 25-foot ban last year, but upheld the federal 150-foot restriction against giving out food and water outside polling places.
Georgia's battle for voting rights intensified after the 2020 presidential election when then-President Republican Donald Trump and his supporters falsely claimed that widespread voting fraud cost him his re-election bid. The debate over the impact of sweeping changes to Georgia's election rules continued this week with the culmination of Tuesday's presidential election, which saw Trump defeat Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris to win Georgia's 16 electoral votes.
Several supporters of the election rules changes have cited this year's record 5.2 million turnout for the general election, which included four million votes in early voting in person and absentee ballots . The record turnout in November 2024 raises questions about the actual effect of the 2021 election overhaul, denounced as voter suppression by President Joe Biden soon after the governor signed it into law .
During a press conference Tuesday night, Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said a new rule he supported to shorten lines at the polls on election day worked well, with voters arriving at the polls and casting their ballots on average in 10 minutes across the state.
"You don't need water when your average line time is two minutes," he said.
A year after Trump lost the 2020 election, Georgia's Republican majority Legislature passed an election law overhaul set out in Senate Bill 202. There have been multiple changes to Georgia's election law since then, including those affecting absentee ballot voting, mass voter challenges, and granting partisan poll watchers increased access as election workers process ballots.
Several voting and civil rights organizations, including Fair Fight Action in Georgia, are opposing what they claim are numerous unfunded and unnecessary mandates on county election officials that have been imposed since 2020 by Republican elected officials.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight, said that the latest changes to Georgia's election law likely did not change the outcome of this year's presidential election, in which Trump defeated Harris by more than 116,000 votes.
Even so, the changes to absentee ballot voting and banning provisional ballots if voters show up at the wrong precinct after 5 p.m. on Election Day could still have an impact on closely contested races in the Legislature and other contests on the ballot, she said.
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday's election, Groh-Wargo expressed frustration over persistent disinformation campaigns and racially targeted election legislation.
A number of progressive organizations voiced concerns about the lack of funding for election boards, including a ban on local county election offices receiving outside funding to comply with the new laws. But a late push by Trump-aligned members of the Georgia State Election Board to further tweak the rules – including a requirement that poll workers do a hand count of ballots on election night – were blocked by court challenges.
Fair Fight will analyze the data from this year's election to determine whether the rules changes had an analytical impact on voters and the ability to conduct local elections, Groh-Wargo said.
Additionally, Fair Fight is preparing for ongoing legal challenges to Georgia's election law.
This year, Groh-Wargo said, local election officials were placed under duress by an "unprecedented amount" of legislation and litigation pertaining to elections.
"There were more bills passed earlier this year that changed how election administration works," she said. "This is an incredibly challenging time to be administering elections because every year the state Legislature seems to change the rules."
According to Fair Fight Action, many county registrars experienced delays with vote-by-mail processing, with one third of contacted voters still waiting for their ballots by election day.
Heading into the final day of early voting in this year's general election, at least 1,200 absentee ballots had been initially rejected for deficiencies Groups like VoteRiders were offering assistance to help others cure the ballot rejections, which they said often were the result of Georgia voters being unaware of the new ID requirements work, that differ for each form of voting.
Georgia has also been a central part of Trump's yearslong insistence that the 2020 election was rigged against him, though his narrow loss to President Joe Biden was confirmed after three counts – including one done by hand – and unsuccessful court challenges.
Trump and other supporters spread false allegations that the election was stolen in order to cause doubt in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states where Trump was defeated after the 2020 election.
A new Georgia law made the 2024 election cycle the first time local election offices were required to post within one hour after polls close results from early voting and the absentee ballots that were returned prior to Election Day.
There were 3.6 million votes cast in Georgia during early voting this fall, while more than 344,000 absentee ballots were returned to county election offices prior to Tuesday.
Raffensperger said Tuesday night that Georgia's elections are more secure because of new election rules, such as photo ID requirements for absentee ballot voting and Georgia joining a multi-state coalition to keep voter rolls more accurate.
"We've worked hard to build a team. We've worked hard to provide voters the very best voting experience," he said.
According to David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, claims of voter suppression in Georgia following the 2020 election have been exaggerated.
Georgia, where people can automatically register when they obtain a driver's license or state identification card, already has a high voter registration rate, he said.
"If you do a search for voter suppression, you're going to find Georgia gets more hits than almost any other state," Becker said during at a Knight Foundation election law forum in September. "And yet, Georgia is not only one of the easiest states to vote in for everybody, it has one of the highest voter registration district rates in the country."
