Months before the presidential election, Georgia’s Republican governor signed a bill that makes major changes to how elections are conducted in the battleground state.
Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill on Monday, his spokesman Garrison Douglas confirmed to USA TODAY. Kemp did not issue a statement or comment on the bill.
Kemp’s announcement came at the end of the final day to sign or veto the bill under state law. The Republican-led state Legislature passed the bill in late March, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia has promised to file a lawsuit immediately if Kemp signs it.
Kemp’s decision was highly anticipated given his unique predicament governing a state where Republican lawmakers often defer to former President Donald Trump. Trump rejected the 2020 election results, but Kemp refused to help overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia. Across the South, Republican legislatures are pushing to reform election laws to counter baseless allegations that the 2020 election was stolen.
The new law, SB 189, would create a new process for how counties remove people’s voter registrations from their rolls, empowering right-wing grassroots activists who have challenged thousands of registrations as ineligible. However, the Secretary of State’s office says it will stipulate this provision. limit.
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The bill would create new steps for homeless people to register to vote, requiring them to register at county election offices, while another part of the bill would require counties to register in non-residential locations in the future. The government allows voters to be removed from the voter list if they are eligible. The ACLU said this would lead to their disenfranchisement.
Voters can also be removed from the voter registration list up to 45 days before an election. Federal law says states cannot remove 90 people from their voter rolls after an election.
Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, called the law “a rollback of voter rights and access to voting” and vowed to see Kemp in court.
“This bill will force already overburdened election officials to spend time processing unnecessary voter challenges,” she said.
This is the second election reform bill signed by Kemp since 2020. Previous legislation, SB 202, made it more difficult to obtain absentee ballots and prohibited bringing food or gifts to people waiting to vote. The law also transferred control of state election boards from the Secretary of State to the Legislature and allowed average citizens to challenge voter registrations without limit.
The bill would also make it easier for third-party candidates to get on the ballot, including independent candidate Robert F. This provision will help Kennedy Jr. He can’t beat Donald Trump.
Other provisions of the law, such as removing QR codes from ballots, are expected to take effect in the next few years.
