FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — More fallout continues behind the controversial voting law that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed last month.
The Fulton County County Commission has decided to begin the process of legally challenging the state on Senate Bill 202.
In a news release Wednesday evening from District 6 Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman's office, the decision was made in a 4 to 2 vote to adopt the resolution called “Stop Voter Suppression."
“This puts us as county on the right side of history,” said Abdur-Rahman, who sponsored the resolution.
According to Abdur-Rahman, the resolution directs the county attorney to provide legal methods the county could use to fight the implementation of the bill, along with other measures.
These are some of the highlights of the state's new voting law:
- Requires an ID number, like a driver’s license, to apply for an absentee ballot
- Cuts off absentee ballot applications 11 days before an election
- Limits the number of absentee ballot drop boxes
- Allows the state to take control of what it calls “underperforming” local election systems
- Disallows volunteers from giving away food and drink to voters waiting in lines
- Revises times for advance voting
- Allows election officials to begin scanning verified ballots on the third Monday before election day
- Requires two Saturday voting days and makes two Sunday voting days optional
- Revises times for runoffs to be held on the 28th day after a general or special primary election
Critics of the law claim that it was on that false narrative of widespread voter fraud that Republicans based the legislation. And the law, according to the wording of the bill, was introduced because "there was a significant lack of confidence in Georgia election systems," even though there was no evidence of anything nefarious happening during the election.
Republicans, however, have countered that state election law was overdue to get an overhaul, irrespective of the 2020 election, and the goal is to make it "easy to vote but hard to cheat."