The American Civil Liberties Union, Georgia ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Southern Poverty Law Center, and WilmerHale and Davis Wright Tremaine law firms have filed the case on behalf of the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Georgia Muslim Voter Project, Women Watch Africa, the Latino Community Fund Georgia, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
The lawsuit alleges the new law will make it more difficult for Georgians, “especially color voters, new citizens and religious groups,” to vote, according to a lawsuit published Tuesday. The lawsuit also challenges several provisions of the new law, including the ban on mobile voting, new ID requirements for applying for a postal vote, and the ban on “warming the pipe” – which would make it a crime for volunteers to provide food and water to the volunteers Voters standing in line.
The law also empowers state officials to hold local elections and limits the use of ballot boxes.
Republicans have deemed the measure, dubbed the 2021 Electoral Integrity Act, necessary to build confidence in the voting process following repeated, unfounded allegations of fraud by former President Donald Trump.
The Georgian law is part of a larger effort by GOP lawmakers across the country – including the battlefield states of Michigan and Arizona – to roll back post-2020 election access.
Across the country, bills have been postponed in at least 45 states. According to a February analysis by the liberal Brennan Center for Justice, at least 253 bills with provisions that would restrict access to voting rights have been postponed this year – more than six times the number of bills at the same time last year.
“Courageous and Shameful”
Sherrilyn Ifill, president and advisor to the NAACP LDF, said Tuesday the bill was “perhaps the boldest and most shameful voter suppression bill ever passed.”
“Its purpose and aim are clear: to create barriers to voting for black voters, a record high in the November 2020 presidential election and January 2021 special election,” Ifill said in a statement. “The provisions of the new law and the manner in which it was enacted reflect a thorough disregard for the sanctity of the protection of the right to vote and a mindless and determined zeal to reduce the political power of blacks in Georgia.”
The Georgia NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the Popular Agenda, the League of Women Voters of Georgia, the GALEO Latino Community Development Fund, Common Cause, and the Lower Muskogee Creek Tribe filed a federal lawsuit late Sunday claiming that “SB 202 was the culmination a concerted effort. ” suppress the participation of black voters and other color voters through the Republican Senate, State House, and the governor. ”
It is also alleged that Republican officials made specific changes targeting color voters after the record turnout and Democratic victories in the November 2020 presidential election and two Senate runoffs in January 2021.
Marc Elias, an election attorney, filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of the New Georgia Project, owned by Black Voters Matter and Rise Inc., for similar reasons.
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