佐治亚州州长布赖恩·肯普签署了一项近100页的综合议案周四可以彻底改变到选举法律，影响选民、地方选举管理人员和监督选举的委员会。

在立法会议结束前几天，佐治亚州议会两院的共和党议员首先在众议院，然后在参议院通过了SB 202法案。

马克·埃利亚斯，这位代表民主党提出在大流行期间扩大选择的律师，已经承诺“立即诉讼”如果肯普签署法案成为法律。

民主党人和投票权倡导者抨击议案作为压制选民的策略和立法“夺权”作为对前总统唐纳德·特朗普和共和党盟友数月来兜售关于一场被盗、充满欺诈的选举的虚假阴谋论的回应。但共和党人认为，该法案增加了可及性，旨在简化选举，提供统一性，并解决“政治光谱的所有方面”对格鲁吉亚选举缺乏信心的问题，民主党人对这一概念持有异议。

杰西卡·麦高恩/盖蒂影像公司

2020年11月3日，亚特兰大，选民在大都会图书馆向投票工作人员报到投票。

该法案将扩大初选和大选的提前投票，但不会扩大决胜投票，这就是乔恩·奥索夫和拉斐尔·沃诺克(Raphael Warnock)在1月份获得参议院席位和民主党多数席位的原因，打破了民主党在全州决胜选举中连续几十年失败的局面。

对于初选和大选，各县将被要求在周六提前投票，并可以选择在三周内的两个周日提前投票。现行法律只规定提前投票的一个星期六。另一项等待最终投票的综合选举法案HB 531最初禁止周日提前投票，但在民主党人和宗教界的激烈反对下，该法案被修改，他们称之为对参加周日服务后“灵魂投票”活动的黑人选民的直接攻击。

然而，该法案将把选举和决胜选举之间的时间从9周缩短到4周，尽管各县可以“尽快”开始提前投票，但该法案只要求在选举前一周的周一至周五进行投票，这是一个更短的授权，不包括周末。更复杂的是，当许多人在旅行时，这一周可能与感恩节相吻合。该法案还禁止节假日提前投票。

该法案的一项条款规定，不是选举工作人员的人向排队投票的选民提供食物或饮料是犯罪行为，这种做法被称为“排队取暖”，自助供水站除外。在2020年6月的初选中，格鲁吉亚最大的都会县——拥有大量少数民族人口的民主党据点——的选民排队长达8个小时。

另一项规定禁止在下午5点前进行选区外投票，在此之后到达的选民必须签署一份宣誓书，表示他们无法及时到达指定的选区进行投票。目前，出现在错误选区的选民可以投临时票，他们的选票将计入他们有资格投票的种族，如全州的种族。

该法案还将取消验证邮寄选票的签名匹配程序，而是要求选民提供他们的驾驶执照或州身份证号码，或者如果选民没有这些证件，提供另一份可接受的身份证复印件。

梅根·瓦尔纳/盖蒂影像公司

2021年3月8日，示威者戴着镣铐，在国会大厦内静坐示威

虽然一项对格鲁吉亚第三大县签名的审计没有发现任何欺诈性投票，但这一核实过程是这位前总统选举后愤怒的主要来源。像州长一样，共和党高层支持将这种“主观”的验证过程改为“客观”的验证过程。

安全投票箱在目前的州法律下没有得到明确的批准，这项法案将改变这一点，但与2020年周期的选民经历相比，它还将对投票箱的使用实施新的限制。

除非有健康紧急情况，投递箱只能放在提前投票的地方，并且只能在这些地方开放时才能使用。这意味着选民不能在选举前三天或选举日使用它们——通过邮件退回缺席选票的时期风险最大，因为它必须在选举日下午7点前到达才能计数。

另一项规定将禁止便携式投票设施，如富尔顿县上一轮使用的移动投票公共汽车，除非在紧急情况下迫使投票站关闭。此外，第三方团体将被禁止向任何已经要求、收到或投票邮寄选票的选民发送缺席投票申请。这样做使他们受到国家选举委员会的制裁。

该委员会也将得到自己的改革，大会将获得新的选举权力。

这部长将成为无表决权的董事会成员，不再担任董事会主席。相反，共和党控制的大会将通过多数票选举主席。由于立法机构已经任命了两名委员会成员，根据该法案，他们将在监督选举的委员会中任命五名投票成员中的三名，并将潜在的违反选举法的行为提交给总检察长或相关的地区检察官。

梅根·瓦尔纳/盖蒂影像公司

一名妇女在亚特兰大国会大厦外抗议众议院第531号法案

该委员会的新权力包括暂停县选举总监的职务并任命临时替代者。但该委员会制定紧急规则的权力将受到限制，因为众议院和参议院司法委员会将有权暂停因公共卫生紧急情况而实施的规则，如2020年周期中批准投递箱的规则。

该法案的两项条款将为县选举部门增加新的负担。

虽然各县将被允许提前几周开始处理缺席选票，但在选举之夜，工作人员将不再有能力在选票完成之前停止计票，不包括在选举后周五之前可以接受的少数几类选票。

该法案还改变了县必须完成认证的时间，将截止日期提前了四天，这一变化将对通常在当前截止日期或接近当前截止日期进行认证的大型都会县产生最大影响。

Kemp signs sweeping elections bill passed by Georgia legislature. Here's what's in it.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a nearly100-page omnibus billThursday that willmake sweeping changestoelectionlaw, impacting voters, local election administrators and the board overseeing elections.

With just days left before the legislative session ends, Republican lawmakers in both chambers of the Georgia General Assembly passed the bill, SB 202, on a party-line vote in the House first and then the Senate.

Marc Elias, the attorney leading the charge on behalf of Democrats to expand options during the pandemic, had already promised"an immediate lawsuit"if Kemp signed the bill into law.

Democrats and voting rights advocates haveblasted the billas a voter-suppression tactic and legislative"power grab"in response to former President Donald Trump and GOP allies peddling false conspiracy theories about a stolen, fraud-filled election for months. But Republicans contend the bill increases accessibility and is meant to streamline elections, provide uniformity and address a lack of confidence in Georgia's elections "on all sides of the political spectrum," a notion Democrats dispute.

The bill would expand early voting for primary and general elections, but not for runoffs, which is how Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock secured their Senate seats -- and the Democrats' majority -- in January, breaking a decades-long streak of Democrats losing in statewide runoff elections.

For primaries and general elections, counties would be required to have advance voting on both Saturdays and have the option to do it on the two Sundays that fall in the three-week period, too. Current law only mandates one Saturday of early voting. Another omnibus election bill awaiting final votes, HB 531, originally banned early voting on Sundays, but it was changed following fierce pushback from Democrats and the faith community who called it a direct attack on Black voters who participated in "Souls to the Polls" events after Sunday service.

However, this bill would shorten the period between elections and runoffs from nine weeks to four weeks, and while counties would be able to start early voting "as soon as possible," the bill only requires it be offered Monday through Friday the week before the election -- a much shorter mandate that includes no weekend days. Complicating this further is the possibility that the week lines up with Thanksgiving, when many are traveling. This bill also bans early voting on holidays.

One provision of the bill would make it a crime for someone who is not an election worker to give food or beverage to any elector waiting in line to vote, a practice known as "line warming," except for self-service water stations. In the June 2020 primary, voters in Georgia's largest metro counties -- Democratic strongholds with large minority populations -- waited in line for up to eight hours.

Another provision bans out-of-precinct voting until 5 p.m., and electors arriving after that point must sign an affidavit saying they cannot get to their assigned precinct in time to vote. Currently, voters who show up to the wrong precinct can vote a provisional ballot and their votes will be counted for races they were eligible to vote for, like statewide races.

The bill would also eliminate the signature-matching process to verify mail ballots and instead require voters to provide their driver's license or state ID number, or a photocopy of another accepted identification if the elector lacks those.

While an audit examining the signatures in Georgia's third-largest county found no fraudulently cast ballots, this verification process was the source of much of the former president's post-election ire. Top Republicans, like the governor, endorsed changing from this "subjective" verification process to an "objective" one.

Secure ballot drop boxes are not explicitly sanctioned under current state law, and this bill would change that, but it would also implement new restrictions on their use compared to what voters experienced in the 2020 cycle.

Unless there's a health emergency, drop boxes could only be inside advance voting locations and only accessible when those locations are open. This means voters could not use them during the three days preceding an election or on Election Day -- the period when returning an absentee ballot by mail is most risky since it must arrive by 7 p.m. on Election Day to count.

Another provision would ban portable polling facilities, like the mobile voting buses Fulton County used last cycle, except in emergencies that force a polling precinct to close. Additionally, third-party groups would be barred from sending absentee ballot applications to any voter who has already requested, received or voted a mail ballot. Doing so subjects them to sanctions by the State Election Board.

The board would also get its own overhaul and the General Assembly would gain new power over elections.

Thesecretary of statewould become a nonvoting member of the board and no longer chair it. Instead, the Republican-controlled General Assembly would elect a chair by a majority vote. Since the legislature already appoints two board members, under this bill they would appoint three of five voting members to the board that oversee elections and refers potential election law violations to the attorney general or relevant district attorney.

Among the board's new authorities is the ability to suspend county election superintendents and appoint temporary replacements. But the board's power to enact emergency rules would be curtailed because the House and Senate Judiciary Committees would have the power to suspend rules put in place because of public health emergencies, like the one sanctioning drop boxes in the 2020 cycle.

Two provisions of the bill would add new burdens for county election divisions.

While counties would be allowed to begin processing absentee ballots weeks ahead of time, on election night workers would no longer have the ability to stop counting ballots until they are finished, excluding the few categories of ballots that can be accepted until the Friday after the election.

The bill also changes when counties must complete certification, moving up the deadline by four days -- a change that will most impact the large, metro counties that typically certify on or close to the current deadline.