Atlanta, GA. (AP) – Georgia’s comprehensive new overhaul of electoral laws threatens basic voting rights, freedom of expression and the separation of powers, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Monday.
The lawsuit against the Secretary of State and members of the state’s electoral committee was filed in federal court in Atlanta by members of the district electoral committee, individual voters, poll workers, nonprofit organizations, and a journalist. It joins half a dozen other legal disputes asking a judge to declare portions of the new electoral law unconstitutional and prohibit the state from enforcing them.
“Freedom requires at least three essential things – unrestricted voting rights, freedom of speech and a sensible separation of powers,” the lawsuit says. “This lawsuit is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of individuals and the constitutional government against the attacks (the law) on these three pillars of freedom.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accused the Coalition for Good Governance, an electoral integrity advocate, one of the plaintiffs, of spreading disinformation about the new law.
“We look forward to defeating another frivolous lawsuit,” Raffensperger said in a statement emailed.
Attorney General Chris Carr said it was his duty to defend the constitution and the laws of Georgia.
“We have observed a significant amount of misinformation about this legislation,” Carr said in a statement emailed. “Our office will properly evaluate this law and defend the state and its citizens. We have and will continue to protect access to and integrity of voting in Georgia. “
One of the most significant changes to the new law is that the State Secretary as chairman of the state electoral committee will be dismissed and this elected official will be replaced by a chairman elected by the General Assembly. It also allows the state board to remove district election superintendents – a combined electoral and registration body in most counties – without giving them a long notice or giving them a meaningful way to defend themselves against dismissal, and then allow the state board , a single person in their place, the lawsuit states. While electoral committees are subject to the requirements of Georgia’s Open Gatherings Act, replacing them with a single person would mean that decisions would be made by that person without the transparency of a public gathering, the lawsuit said.
In counties where the electoral and registration committee are separate, the electoral board is the superintendent. While the law provides for the appointment of a successor to a deposed superintendent, it does not provide for the appointment of a replacement for the registrar who could leave a county without someone doing that vital work, the lawsuit said.
Another part of the law that has received a lot of attention and has been challenged in other cases for alleging it makes voting more difficult is a change in the identification of postal ballot papers. Instead of signing the ballot envelopes to be verified by election workers, voters must provide their name, date of birth, address, and driver’s license or government ID number.
Rather than adding security as the law’s sponsors and Raffensperger have claimed, this change creates the potential for fraud, vote dilution, and identity theft, the lawsuit says. The personal identification data required under the new law can easily be stolen, which opens up the possibility of requesting and submitting ballot papers with the names and information of voters without their knowledge, the lawsuit said.
The new law makes it a crime to “intentionally watch a voter vote so that he can see who or what the voter is voting for”. But the large touchscreen voting machines Georgia uses make it difficult for anyone at a polling station to avoid a voter voting, thereby indicting voters and observers with a crime that could discourage their participation, the lawsuit said.
The new law states that observers and observers cannot give “any information they see while monitoring the processing and scanning of postal ballot papers” to anyone other than an election officer. It also makes it an administrative offense for these observers and observers to count, tabulate and estimate votes. These provisions mean that observers, including news reporters, will face criminal charges for reporting on postal ballot processing, table issues or progress, the lawsuit said.
The law also makes it an administrative offense to photograph or record the face of a touchscreen voting machine while it is being used to vote or while a voter’s selection is displayed. The news media frequently shoots photos and videos of people voting, and that provision would criminalize constitutional speech, the lawsuit said.
According to the new law, the time window for applying for a postal vote is shortened from 180 days before the election day to 78 days before an election and closes 11 days before the election day. That means voters who have an unforeseen emergency within 11 days of an election will be disenfranchised, and it also means that postal voting will be impossible in some runoffs, the lawsuit said.
The provisions that allow the state electoral board to replace local election officials are “outrageous and dangerous to any concept of free and fair elections,” said Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance. And parts of the law that criminalize citizen and press surveillance practices in elections are “abhorrent to modern democratic societies,” she said.
