New Georgia Law Brings Stiff Penalties If Voters Are Sent More Than One Absentee Ballot Application
A record number of Georgians voted by mail in 2020, but new laws could mean big fines for groups that send absentee ballot applications
Emil Moffatt / WABE
Part of Georgia’s controversial new voting law puts restrictions on organizations who send absentee ballot applications to voters, including a $100 fine for each application sent to a voter who has already applied for one.
“This would prevent us from helping Georgia voters to vote and be part of democracy,” said Tom Lopach, president of the Voter Participation Center, a group that sent thousands of absentee ballot applications to Georgia voters in the 2020 election cycle. His organization along with others have filed a lawsuit hoping to strike down this portion of the law.
GOP lawmakers say the measure will prevent people from receiving multiple applications. They say that led to confusion last year.
Lopach dismisses that argument.
“Our mailers state very clearly, ‘if you have already applied to vote by mail, please discard this mailer,’” said Lopach. “You have people who were creating confusion and now are passing a law to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. We need to be dealing in facts and reality.”
The $100 fine will come into play if counties have to process duplicate applications for the same voter.
Lopach says production time and mail delays will make it nearly impossible to keep current with the latest list of voters who’ve already submitted an application. As an example, he detailed his organization’s timeline from 2020.
“Our data went to the printers at the end of August, and by the time it was done printing and ready to hit the U.S. Postal stream, we know in those 21 days, 450,000 Georgians had applied to vote by mail,” said Lopach. “So this would potentially fine us for mailing to 450,000 Georgians.”
Senate Bill 202, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on March 25, also bans organizations from automatically filling in voter information on forms.
The Voter Participation Center is one of several groups that blanketed Georgia with absentee ballot applications in 2020. A record 1.3 million residents voted by mail in the November general election with a million more doing so in the January U.S. Senate runoffs. Vote-by-mail heavily favored Democrats in both elections.
Last year, the secretary of state’s office set up an online portal for requesting an absentee ballot. But that portal may not be accessible to voters without reliable internet access, creating a need for mailed applications.
“We expect that all the organizations who have done that work in the past will have to spend additional funds to do be able to do the same amount of outreach work,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight Action.
She says these new application restrictions combined with additional ID requirements, a reduction in the amount of time ballots can be requested and changing the way provisional ballots are handled for out-of-precinct voters are part of a larger GOP strategy.
“All four of those together are cutting into the margins of Democratic votes. And Republicans understand that because they know the state is now competitive,” said Groh-Wargo.
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