The Fulton County commissioners are moving to fight back against Georgia’s election bill.
The Democratic commissioners, led by Khadijah Abdur-Rahman, are sponsoring a resolution that directs the county to mitigate the negative effects of the bill Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law on March 25. The resolution, which is expected to be introduced on Wednesday, expresses support for federal voting rights legislation and urges attorneys general to explore legal possibilities to fight against the bill.
“You can call it Jim Crow. You can put it in a bow, but it’s still targeted voter suppression,” Abdur-Rahman said at a press conference on Tuesday, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting. “We stand as commissioners on the premise that access to the ballot should be easy and accessible, not hard.”
A number of provisions within the bill Kemp signed unfairly targets Fulton County, which has the highest population of any county within the state, she said.
“You cannot go and empower the rural area and disenfranchise the metropolitan area,” said Abdur-Rahman, per the Atlanta-based NPR affiliate. “Let’s be fair across the board. You put in more access for rural Georgia but not metropolitan Atlanta.”
The bill makes it mandatory for voters seeking an absentee ballot to provide a form of identification. Previously, election officials would verify electors through signature verification.
It would also shorten the time between general elections and runoff elections, provide state officials with the authority to take over local election boards in certain circumstances, and make it a crime for anyone other than election workers to approach voters in line to give them anything.
The law codified the use of drop boxes, at least one per county, which were used in 2020 under the guise of coronavirus prevention, but they will now be placed in early voting locations and can only be accessed during the business hours of the voting precinct.
There is a cap on the number of drop boxes permitted, with one for every 100,000 voters, which would drop Fulton County’s total from 38 to eight.
The bill bans “buses and other readily movable facilities” for voting unless the governor declares an emergency.
“Fulton County has two mobile units that helped 11,000 people vote,” Abdur-Rahman said. “Were these the 11,000 votes that Trump was looking for? I ask you to think about that. Eleven thousand voters will not be able to vote because SB 202 will take that and make it a trash can.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whose power got diminished through the bill and has faced the ire of much of his own party, released a statement criticizing the resolution from Fulton County officials.
“Fulton County has been failing its voters for at least 25 years. Each new election cycle brings a new failure and it is Fulton’s voters who suffer,” Raffensperger wrote. “Fulton County’s Democrat commissioners are now taking aim at legislation that could actually bring Fulton’s voters the relief they have been seeking for decades.”
The bill has resulted in boycotts and protests throughout the state. Many local business leaders have also come out against the election changes.
Democrats and Republicans are advocating for election reform. Republicans often call for strengthening voter identification laws and decreasing voting by mail, while Democrats call for automatic voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting, which allows voters to obtain absentee ballots without providing a reason.
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Several states under single-party control, including Georgia, Iowa, Texas, and New Jersey, passed legislation to adjust how they conduct elections.
