ATLANTA — Today, after Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan lost control of his Senate chamber and decided to hide in his office rather than lead, Georgia Senate Republicans pushed through SB 241, one of the worst voter suppression bills in the country that would end no-excuse absentee voting, passing it by a single vote in their latest desperate attempt to appease the Big Lie pushed by insurrectionists and conspiracy theorists.
SB 241 — which also received bipartisan opposition — would take away a critical option that hundreds of thousands of Georgians used to cast their ballot in the last election, implement onerous new ID burdens that may require access to a printer, scanner or copy machine, and grant the state legislature unprecedented power to fire and replace election officials at will, creating one of the worst voting laws in the entire country as part of the most significant attack on voting since Jim Crow. But rather than voting against Jim Crow 2.0, Senators Albers, Hufstetler, Kirkpatrick, Miller, and Strickland decided not to vote rather than joining together to prevent the bill from being passed.
This massive attack on the voting rights of Georgians also comes with an enormous and unfunded price tag of at least $28 million — an amount that could force counties to raise taxes at a critical time for working families in Georgia. And its unconstitutional provisions would force Georgia taxpayers to bear the costly expense of litigation as Republicans struggle to defend their hastily-written legislation in court.
“Georgia Senate Republicans’ SB 241 will add millions of dollars in unfunded mandates onto the backs of Georgia taxpayers while taking away the right to vote absentee without excuse from Georgians — they’re targeting voters of color and this bill will hurt them, along with seniors of all races, Republicans and all voters,” said Fair Fight Action CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo. “This blatantly unconstitutional legislation will not go unchallenged. It’s time for leaders across Georgia to step up and oppose this dangerous bill before it goes any further. We will continue to fight in Georgia, in the courts, and in Congress to make sure that Georgians’ voting rights are not infringed.”
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