Georgia lawmakers make it easier to challenge a voter’s registration

Georgia legislators changed state election laws in the midnight hours of Friday, widening the criteria to challenge a voter’s registration, removing bar codes from printed ballots and increasing the documentation local elections officials must produce to certify elections.

The proposals will take effect 1 July, assuming the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, signs the legislation into law.

Voting rights groups expressed their highest concern about how Senate Bill 189 potentially expands challenges to voter registrations. Conservative advocates have been issuing large-scale systematic challenges to voters – dozens or hundreds at a time in some districts, like Atlanta’s Fulton and DeKalb counties. Each challenge under existing law has to be considered on its individual merits under current law, which can exhaust the resources of local election officials, voting rights advocates argue.

“In past cycles, we have seen ordinary people who would come in and challenge hundreds of voters because of different lists,” said Andrea Young, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. “In 2022 there was kind of sort of a gray area. Now with this, it is almost encouraging … really anti-democratic vigilantes to come in and challenge your right to be on the voting list.”

The legislation defines new conditions under which a challenge to a voter’s registration would have probable cause, including a subsequent registration in another state or jurisdiction, using a different residence to obtain a homestead tax exemption, registration at a nonresidential address. Challenges would not be permitted within 45 days of an election.

In the 2022 Senate election, questions dogged the Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, about his