Georgia Counties Change Voting Rules Amidst Voter Suppression Concerns
Fulton County Polling Facility (Wikimedia Commons)
The Board of Elections in Georgia’s most populated area, Fulton County, voted on September 4 to implement key operational changes to 40 polling places affecting about 170,000 voters. In anticipation of Election Day, numerous other counties in Georgia also passed measures to ease the strain of voter suppression and obstacles linked to COVID-19 restrictions.
These changes come in response to growing concerns about votes being appropriately counted in future elections. Closed polling stations, long lines, and voting machine malfunctions have historically plagued counties in Georgia, especially those of predominantly minority populations. Georgia’s June primary elections saw widespread complaints of multi-hour wait times for in-person voting, prompting multiple federal lawsuits.
Georgia’s election crisis disproportionately affects communities of color. Expert analysis finds that voters of color in Georgia experienced wait times 50 minutes longer than white voters during the June primary. In Fulton County (the county that contains Atlanta), the main polling station at Park Tavern—assigned with over 16,000 Atlantans—witnessed up to five-hour waits. In the weeks leading up to the primaries, 10 percent of all Georgia’s polling locations were relocated. In Atlanta, over 80 polling stations closed or consolidated.
Georgia has 16 electoral votes and two Senate seats at stake in this election. Georgians rely heavily on in-person voting; as of one month ago, only one-ninth of the active voting population in the state had requested a November absentee ballot. If the primaries are any warning, resources will be stretched thin for in-person voting during COVID-19.
Fulton County Commissioner Robert Pitts said of the primaries, “Everything that could happen or go wrong has gone wrong so far.” Poll workers unfamiliar with touch-screen voting operated malfunctioning machines. Additionally, voting locations ran out of backup provisional paper ballots. Technological and human errors exacerbated the strain on resources due to COVID-19 and made voting a cumbersome process for many minority (predominantly Black) voters.
None of this is new to Georgia. In the 2016 general election and the 2018 heavily-disputed governor’s race, Georgian voters faced numerous obstacles in casting ballots and risked ballot disqualifications for minute mistakes.
Many of these voter suppression tactics can be traced back to a 2013 Supreme Court decision striking down the Section 5 preclearance provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The crucial provision required states to obtain approval from the Department of Justice before changing voting laws. The provision covered guidelines for new ID requirements, poll relocations or closures, voter roll purges, and changes to early voting deadlines.
Immediately following the nullification, multiple states—including Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina—instituted new voting restrictions within the next day. Without the provision, the burden to catch discriminatory voting practices falls onto local advocacy groups. However, these voter suppression practices often appear quicker than they can be resolved.
As voters across the country begin requesting and filling out ballots in this high-stakes election, the nation should watch Georgia closely.