The 40-page bill would give the Georgia Bureau of Investigations the power to initiate voter fraud allegations, work currently overseen by state election officials. The Bureau of Investigation would also have the power to subpoena election records with the approval of the Attorney General.
It would also allow public inspection of original ballot papers and make other changes to voting procedures in this key battleground state.
The sweeping measure, now heading to the Georgia Senate, is part of a wave of bills moving through Republican-controlled state legislatures this year aimed at reshaping election procedures following President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory to write. Former President Donald Trump and his allies have falsely attributed his loss in Georgia and other key states to voter fraud. Voting rights activists denounced the proposed measures in Georgia as they erect new hurdles to voting in a state that will host marquee races for the governor and the U.S. Senate seat this year. As currently written, the changes would come into effect in July – before the general election in November.
And voting rights groups have warned that involving state law enforcement agencies in monitoring voter fraud could hurt election turnout.
“It makes people think there’s a chance they could be investigated,” said Xakota Espinoza of Fair Fight Action, a group founded by Stacey Abrams, who is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination .
“Why is that necessary? They are pushing this law to appease conspiracy theorists.”
During last week’s committee debate, GOP state assemblyman Alan Powell said lawmakers are “trying to get to the point where everything is consistent — no matter what county it’s in.”
This would “allay any fears and concerns that something was being done wrong,” he said.
Republicans in Georgia House have acted quickly in recent days to push the measure ahead of the state legislature’s internal deadline Tuesday for bills to clarify at least one chamber. The bill, passed by a vote of 98 to 73, was the last piece of legislation under consideration on the deadline and passed the House just before 11:00 p.m. ET.
Republican lawmakers in Georgia House unveiled the sweeping proposal last week — just as the GOP-controlled legislature in neighboring Florida gave final approval to an election security office requested by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Milton Kidd, who oversees the election in Douglas County, west of Atlanta, said the Georgia Bureau of Investigations’ more direct involvement could discourage poll officials and voters from attending.
“Call officials … have told me that they left the polling station because they feel this will be an action against them,” Kidd said at a recent hearing on the bill. “It will have a chilling effect on voters taking part in the process as the electoral problems identified by the Secretary of State were in most cases administrative problems. These are problems that the current mechanism can actually deal with.”
Georgia and Florida are both among states that enacted new voting restrictions last year.
Georgia’s major electoral overhaul in 2021 introduced new voter ID requirements for mailing ballots, restricted the use of ballot boxes, and allowed state takeovers of local electoral boards.
During a news conference Tuesday morning, Nichola Hines, president of the League of Women Voters of Atlanta-Fulton County, said the proposal would complicate matters for poll workers and voters who are already struggling to cope with changes introduced to Georgia’s 2021 election law and the most recent entail redistribution.
“Adding another round of voting changes at this late stage,” she said, “is a recipe for disaster and is likely to create confusion and stifle voters from both parties.”
The new proposals being considered by Georgia lawmakers focus more on electoral administration than ballot access.
One proposal, for example, provides for sophisticated chain-of-custody procedures for handling postal voting documents.
Another would prevent nonprofits from directly funding local election administrators. Instead, these groups would first have to get approval from the state Elections Board, which would then distribute the grants to prevent funding inequalities across the state.
Republican officials have targeted donations funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan to local polling stations at the height of the pandemic in 2020, claiming an unfair advantage.
Grant administrators have denied any partisan bias in distributing the money, which exceeded $340 million.
Biden’s narrow 2020 victory in Georgia — the first for a Democrat in the state in almost three decades — was confirmed after three ballots. And judges have dismissed several lawsuits alleging fraud.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating what actions Trump or his allies could take to topple Biden’s victory. The probe began last year after Trump’s call to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which he urged the Republican to “find” the votes to overturn the election results.
This headline and article have been updated to reflect the passage of the bill through the House.
CNN’s Dan Berman contributed to this story.
