Georgia Voting Laws: 2021 Election Code
By F. Lewis Smith
Published in The McDuffie Progress
September, 17, 2022
Almost every year since 2010, following a major election in Georgia, election laws have been strengthened by our General Assembly to ensure the legitimacy of our elections. As a Board of Elections member, I want to convey to McDuffie County residents that our board works to: (1) implement state law governing elections and voter registration; (2) provide voters with the assurances that their vote counts, (3) ensure that their vote is accurately counted and properly tabulated; and (4) certify the elections held within our county.
Using recent population data there are 331 million people living in America, 252 million (76%) are 18 Years and older, and 154 million (61%) of those 18 years and older voted. So, only 46% of all the people living in America actually voted in our recent elections. While participating in all the benefits of America, including living, paying taxes and voting, individuals must be positively identified. To cash a check at a bank, to visit a doctor's office, or to fly on a commercial airline, you must show a ‘pictured ID.’ Can the 98 million individuals who are eligible to vote but do not vote be attributed to not having a government issued pictured ID? No; in most cases they just don’t want to take the time to participate in electing the leadership of our country. But there are responsibilities that come with living in America, voting is one. And by registering to vote, people become eligible to serve as a potential juror, another major responsibility. Unlike voting, if you simply choose not to answer the jury summons, law enforcement will find you and ‘ask you to accompany them to speak with a judge.’ Should voting be like that?
Many people say that the 2021 changes to Georgia’s voting laws take us back to the Jim Crow era. During that dark time from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the beginning in 1964 of the Great Society, many poor and uneducated citizens of both races were kept from voting by being unfairly required to prove they could read or pay a poll tax. The Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. But the infamous laws did not begin in the South, they began in Massachusetts in 1838 with the segregation of passengers by race on the first American railroads. Thomas Rice, who called himself the “Original Jim Crow,” was a white man who sang in blackface on the stages of New England in the early 1830s. He was so well known that ‘Jim Crow’ became the buzzword for ‘an ignorant Black man.’
I believe anyone who reads the ‘2021 Georgia Election Code Annotated’ will find that a plethora of positive changes were made last year to protect every Georgian’s voting rights. The 602 page book is now available from Amazon for $45. It’s a textbook so you may have to read some passages two or three times. I herein make a simple recap of the rules and regulations I found important in the Code.
The Code’s introduction states: “Qualified citizens not only have a constitutionally protected right to vote, but also the right to have their votes counted, a right which can neither be denied outright, nor destroyed by alteration of ballots, nor diluted by ballot box stuffing…. Following the 2018 and 2020 elections, there was a significant lack of confidence in Georgia election systems, with many voters concerned about allegations of rampant voter suppression and voter fraud…. The stress of the 2020 elections, with a dramatic increase in absentee-by-mail ballots amid pandemic restrictions, demonstrated where there were opportunities to update existing processes to reduce the burden on election officials and boost voter confidence…. Elections in Georgia are administrated by counties, but that can lead to problems for voters in counties with dysfunctional election systems…. The lengthy absentee ballot process also leads to voter confusion, including electors who were told they had already voted when they had arrived to vote in person…. Opportunities for delivering absentee ballots to a drop box were first created by the State Elections Board as a pandemic response. The drop boxes created by those rules no longer exist in Georgia law because the emergency rules that created them expired…. The sanctity of the precinct was also brought into sharp focus in 2020, with many groups approaching electors while they waited in line. Protecting electors from improper interference, political pressure, or intimidation while waiting in line to vote is of paramount importance to protecting the election system and ensuring elector confidence.”
In considering the changes in 2021, the General Assembly heard hours of testimony from electors, election officials, and attorneys involved in voting. The changes for 2021 “reflect the General Assembly’s considered judgment on the changes to Georgia’s election system to make it ‘easy to vote and hard to cheat,’ applying the lessons learned from conducting an election in the 2020 pandemic.”
Examples of the current voting rules detailed in the 2021 Code are (1) The Attorney General shall maintain a telephone hotline to report voter intimidation or illegal election activities. (2) The State Election Board may only adopt emergency regulations in circumstances of imminent peril to public health, safety, or welfare. To adopt any such regulations the Board shall give reasonable prior notice to the public and appropriate members of the state government, legislative counsel and the chief executive of each political party. (3) The primary and election records of the Secretary of State and municipalities shall be open to public inspection during usual business hours. (4) No person shall vote in any primary or election in Georgia unless he/she shall be lawfully registered, a GA and US citizen, at least 18 years old, a resident of GA and the county and municipality where voting, not a current felon, not mentally incompetent, and someone with satisfactory evidence of citizenship. (5) Satisfactory evidence of citizenship includes a GA driver’s license, an ID card issued by the GA Department of Driver Services, a photocopy of the applicant’s birth certificate, or US passport, or US naturalization documents, or US immigration documents, or a Bureau of Indian Affairs card, or other proof. (6) Any person who was registered on December 31, 2009 shall be deemed a US citizen, but registration from another state is not satisfactory evidence of citizenship.
Other parts of the 2021 Code are (1) Persons convicted of felonies, voters who moved to another state, noncitizens, and mentally incompetent and deceased persons are now systematically removed from the list of voters. (2) The list of electors will also be updated through change of address forms from the US Postal System. (3) Electors who have failed to vote and with whom there has been no contact in three years will be ineligible to vote.
The Code has forty-seven pages of rules and regulations concerning state-wide voting equipment: (1) All equipment used for casting and counting votes in county, state and federal elections shall be the same. (2) Any ten or more Georgia voters may request the Secretary of State to reexamine any voting machine previously examined and approved by him/her. Three experts shall certify whether the machine can be safely and accurately used at elections. (3) Any vendor who sells a voting machine, or an optical scanning voting system, or a direct recording electronic voting system, or an electronic ballot marker not certified by the Secretary of State to a government body in GA shall be subject to a penalty of $100,000.
There are forty-five pages of rules and regulations in the Code concerning absentee voting: (1) From 78 days before until 11 days before a primary or election, any absentee elector may apply to the county election director for an absentee-by-mail ballot either by mail, fax, or email, or in person, for an official ballot. (2) Electors temporarily out of the county or disabled electors may apply for an absentee ballot through certain relatives aged 18 and over upon satisfactory proof of relationship: parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, or in-laws of each. (3) A blank application for an absentee ballot shall be made online by the Secretary of State. (4) Provisions are made for electors in jail and physically disabled or illiterate electors to receive assistance. (5) Advance Voting is offered to each eligible elector without the need to provide a reason. It is available from the 4th Monday before to the immediate Friday before an election. (6) At least one drop box shall be available to receive absentee and advanced voting ballots. It shall be open during advance voting and closed when that ends. Its location shall be under constant surveillance by election officials or security guards. [google thomson-mcduffie.com for our specific information]
Other information found in the Code: (1) Each elector who is 75 or older or who is disabled and requires assistance will be moved to the head of any line. (2) Each county shall accept applications for a GA voter identification card to be used only for voting, if such person does not have a valid GA driver’s license or ID card. (3) A petition to contest an election shall be filed within five days after the election’s certification. The court shall proceed without delay to the hearing and determination of each case. After the hearing the evidence, the court shall declare the winner.
Measures in the Code to prevent fraudulent elections are: (1) Anyone registering to vote who knows they are not eligible, and anyone who registers in any name not their own, and anyone who gives false information when registering, shall be guilty of a felony with punishment between 1 – 10 years in prison or a fine not to exceed $100,000, or both. (2) Any person who willfully makes or permits to be made a false name, figure or statement on any registration card shall likewise be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (3) Any person who willfully attempts to prevent the holding of an election, threatens violence to prevent an elector from voting, deposits a fraudulent ballot in a ballot box, registers fraudulent votes upon a voting machine, or tampers with any voting lists, ballots, boxes or machines shall be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (4) Any person who threatens or intimidates any elector to refrain from voting shall be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (5) Any person who enters a voting compartment while another elector is voting, or interferes with an elector, or induces an elector on how to vote shall be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (6) Anyone who attempts to vote in a primary or election who does not possess all the qualifications of an elector shall be guilty of a felony with similar punishment. (7) Anyone who attempts to vote by absentee ballot in a primary or election who knows that he or she does not qualify to vote shall be guilty of a felony with similar punishment. (8) Any poll worker who makes a false return of the votes cast, who deposits fraudulent ballots in the box, or falsifies the electors list, or destroys or alters any ballot, voter’s certification or list, or tampers with any voting machines or devices shall be guilty of a felony with similar punishment. (9) Any poll officer who permits any unregistered person to vote, or any person who is registered to vote but he/she knows the elector is unqualified, or refuses to permit any duly registered and qualified person to vote shall be guilty of a felony.
This list of rules and regulations from the 2021 Georgia Code does not list every change or every regulation. I recorded and paraphrased only the significant ones, in my opinion, as a public service. I’m sure the Progress will welcome any and all comments about it. Thank you, Lewis Smith
Using recent population data there are 331 million people living in America, 252 million (76%) are 18 Years and older, and 154 million (61%) of those 18 years and older voted. So, only 46% of all the people living in America actually voted in our recent elections. While participating in all the benefits of America, including living, paying taxes and voting, individuals must be positively identified. To cash a check at a bank, to visit a doctor's office, or to fly on a commercial airline, you must show a ‘pictured ID.’ Can the 98 million individuals who are eligible to vote but do not vote be attributed to not having a government issued pictured ID? No; in most cases they just don’t want to take the time to participate in electing the leadership of our country. But there are responsibilities that come with living in America, voting is one. And by registering to vote, people become eligible to serve as a potential juror, another major responsibility. Unlike voting, if you simply choose not to answer the jury summons, law enforcement will find you and ‘ask you to accompany them to speak with a judge.’ Should voting be like that?
Many people say that the 2021 changes to Georgia’s voting laws take us back to the Jim Crow era. During that dark time from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the beginning in 1964 of the Great Society, many poor and uneducated citizens of both races were kept from voting by being unfairly required to prove they could read or pay a poll tax. The Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. But the infamous laws did not begin in the South, they began in Massachusetts in 1838 with the segregation of passengers by race on the first American railroads. Thomas Rice, who called himself the “Original Jim Crow,” was a white man who sang in blackface on the stages of New England in the early 1830s. He was so well known that ‘Jim Crow’ became the buzzword for ‘an ignorant Black man.’
I believe anyone who reads the ‘2021 Georgia Election Code Annotated’ will find that a plethora of positive changes were made last year to protect every Georgian’s voting rights. The 602 page book is now available from Amazon for $45. It’s a textbook so you may have to read some passages two or three times. I herein make a simple recap of the rules and regulations I found important in the Code.
The Code’s introduction states: “Qualified citizens not only have a constitutionally protected right to vote, but also the right to have their votes counted, a right which can neither be denied outright, nor destroyed by alteration of ballots, nor diluted by ballot box stuffing…. Following the 2018 and 2020 elections, there was a significant lack of confidence in Georgia election systems, with many voters concerned about allegations of rampant voter suppression and voter fraud…. The stress of the 2020 elections, with a dramatic increase in absentee-by-mail ballots amid pandemic restrictions, demonstrated where there were opportunities to update existing processes to reduce the burden on election officials and boost voter confidence…. Elections in Georgia are administrated by counties, but that can lead to problems for voters in counties with dysfunctional election systems…. The lengthy absentee ballot process also leads to voter confusion, including electors who were told they had already voted when they had arrived to vote in person…. Opportunities for delivering absentee ballots to a drop box were first created by the State Elections Board as a pandemic response. The drop boxes created by those rules no longer exist in Georgia law because the emergency rules that created them expired…. The sanctity of the precinct was also brought into sharp focus in 2020, with many groups approaching electors while they waited in line. Protecting electors from improper interference, political pressure, or intimidation while waiting in line to vote is of paramount importance to protecting the election system and ensuring elector confidence.”
In considering the changes in 2021, the General Assembly heard hours of testimony from electors, election officials, and attorneys involved in voting. The changes for 2021 “reflect the General Assembly’s considered judgment on the changes to Georgia’s election system to make it ‘easy to vote and hard to cheat,’ applying the lessons learned from conducting an election in the 2020 pandemic.”
Examples of the current voting rules detailed in the 2021 Code are (1) The Attorney General shall maintain a telephone hotline to report voter intimidation or illegal election activities. (2) The State Election Board may only adopt emergency regulations in circumstances of imminent peril to public health, safety, or welfare. To adopt any such regulations the Board shall give reasonable prior notice to the public and appropriate members of the state government, legislative counsel and the chief executive of each political party. (3) The primary and election records of the Secretary of State and municipalities shall be open to public inspection during usual business hours. (4) No person shall vote in any primary or election in Georgia unless he/she shall be lawfully registered, a GA and US citizen, at least 18 years old, a resident of GA and the county and municipality where voting, not a current felon, not mentally incompetent, and someone with satisfactory evidence of citizenship. (5) Satisfactory evidence of citizenship includes a GA driver’s license, an ID card issued by the GA Department of Driver Services, a photocopy of the applicant’s birth certificate, or US passport, or US naturalization documents, or US immigration documents, or a Bureau of Indian Affairs card, or other proof. (6) Any person who was registered on December 31, 2009 shall be deemed a US citizen, but registration from another state is not satisfactory evidence of citizenship.
Other parts of the 2021 Code are (1) Persons convicted of felonies, voters who moved to another state, noncitizens, and mentally incompetent and deceased persons are now systematically removed from the list of voters. (2) The list of electors will also be updated through change of address forms from the US Postal System. (3) Electors who have failed to vote and with whom there has been no contact in three years will be ineligible to vote.
The Code has forty-seven pages of rules and regulations concerning state-wide voting equipment: (1) All equipment used for casting and counting votes in county, state and federal elections shall be the same. (2) Any ten or more Georgia voters may request the Secretary of State to reexamine any voting machine previously examined and approved by him/her. Three experts shall certify whether the machine can be safely and accurately used at elections. (3) Any vendor who sells a voting machine, or an optical scanning voting system, or a direct recording electronic voting system, or an electronic ballot marker not certified by the Secretary of State to a government body in GA shall be subject to a penalty of $100,000.
There are forty-five pages of rules and regulations in the Code concerning absentee voting: (1) From 78 days before until 11 days before a primary or election, any absentee elector may apply to the county election director for an absentee-by-mail ballot either by mail, fax, or email, or in person, for an official ballot. (2) Electors temporarily out of the county or disabled electors may apply for an absentee ballot through certain relatives aged 18 and over upon satisfactory proof of relationship: parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, or in-laws of each. (3) A blank application for an absentee ballot shall be made online by the Secretary of State. (4) Provisions are made for electors in jail and physically disabled or illiterate electors to receive assistance. (5) Advance Voting is offered to each eligible elector without the need to provide a reason. It is available from the 4th Monday before to the immediate Friday before an election. (6) At least one drop box shall be available to receive absentee and advanced voting ballots. It shall be open during advance voting and closed when that ends. Its location shall be under constant surveillance by election officials or security guards. [google thomson-mcduffie.com for our specific information]
Other information found in the Code: (1) Each elector who is 75 or older or who is disabled and requires assistance will be moved to the head of any line. (2) Each county shall accept applications for a GA voter identification card to be used only for voting, if such person does not have a valid GA driver’s license or ID card. (3) A petition to contest an election shall be filed within five days after the election’s certification. The court shall proceed without delay to the hearing and determination of each case. After the hearing the evidence, the court shall declare the winner.
Measures in the Code to prevent fraudulent elections are: (1) Anyone registering to vote who knows they are not eligible, and anyone who registers in any name not their own, and anyone who gives false information when registering, shall be guilty of a felony with punishment between 1 – 10 years in prison or a fine not to exceed $100,000, or both. (2) Any person who willfully makes or permits to be made a false name, figure or statement on any registration card shall likewise be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (3) Any person who willfully attempts to prevent the holding of an election, threatens violence to prevent an elector from voting, deposits a fraudulent ballot in a ballot box, registers fraudulent votes upon a voting machine, or tampers with any voting lists, ballots, boxes or machines shall be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (4) Any person who threatens or intimidates any elector to refrain from voting shall be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (5) Any person who enters a voting compartment while another elector is voting, or interferes with an elector, or induces an elector on how to vote shall be guilty of a felony with identical punitive measures. (6) Anyone who attempts to vote in a primary or election who does not possess all the qualifications of an elector shall be guilty of a felony with similar punishment. (7) Anyone who attempts to vote by absentee ballot in a primary or election who knows that he or she does not qualify to vote shall be guilty of a felony with similar punishment. (8) Any poll worker who makes a false return of the votes cast, who deposits fraudulent ballots in the box, or falsifies the electors list, or destroys or alters any ballot, voter’s certification or list, or tampers with any voting machines or devices shall be guilty of a felony with similar punishment. (9) Any poll officer who permits any unregistered person to vote, or any person who is registered to vote but he/she knows the elector is unqualified, or refuses to permit any duly registered and qualified person to vote shall be guilty of a felony.
This list of rules and regulations from the 2021 Georgia Code does not list every change or every regulation. I recorded and paraphrased only the significant ones, in my opinion, as a public service. I’m sure the Progress will welcome any and all comments about it. Thank you, Lewis Smith
