At CLC, we're continuing to fight for the freedom to vote. Recently, CLC filed a new lawsuit to block a state law in Georgia, S.B. 202. We are representing VoteAmerica, the Voter Participation Center and the Center for Voter Information—nonpartisan national groups who make voting more accessible for Americans by providing help with vote-by-mail applications. These groups’ voter assistance activities are essentially prohibited by the new Georgia law. This suit is consistent with CLC’s role as seasoned litigators with particular expertise in election and constitutional law issues: many suits have been filed against the new Georgia law, and we carefully sifted through the issues to see whether there was anything we were especially able to contribute.
CLC is responding to other bills across the country that aim to create deliberate barriers for voters, and we’re working to ensure voting is accessible for all. The sustained movement on these anti-voter bills continues to underscore the urgency of protecting accessible voting in the states and enacting national standards—such as those created by the For the People Act—to ensure all voters can cast a ballot freely and equally, wherever they live.
The broader debate over whether legislation like Georgia’s is a “legitimate attempt to combat fraud,” as its defenders claim, or an effort to restrict voting, especially for people of color, is an ongoing one. This debate has heated up as major, visible corporate leaders have spoken out to attack the Georgia law. Certainly, the critics of the Georgia law argue that the measure was motivated by racism and partisanship, and its effects will be to diminish minority participation.
For instance, the Georgia law places new strict limits on the number of ballot drop boxes, which will especially affect urban counties with large numbers of Black voters, and it restricts access to them. Further, it makes it a crime for volunteers to pass out food and water to voters waiting in line at voting centers, and flatly forbids mobile polling places, a successful innovation of urban counties in 2020. All of this seems surgically targeted to create barriers for minority communities in the state, where long lines at the polls are common.
Additionally, the law makes the election system in Georgia much more partisan. The law permits a takeover of county election boards by the (Republican) legislature and permits partisan poll watchers to launch unlimited challenges to voter eligibility. This appears to be in retaliation for the honorable role state and local election officials played in 2020 in protecting the integrity of the election results in the face of attempted interference by President Trump and his supporters, and it gives partisan legislators the opportunity to intervene in the voting process.
The Georgia law’s restrictive ID provisions also create high barriers. Under S.B. 202, Georgia voters will be required to list either a driver's license or state-issued ID number to apply to receive a vote-by-mail ballot. If voters don't have this ID (this is estimated to impact more than 200,000 Georgia voters, twenty times greater than the margins in the 2020 presidential election), then they must include a photocopy of an alternative form of ID with their vote-by-mail ballot application. This, in effect, requires voters without a driver’s license/state-issued ID to have access to both a scanner and a printer, which is highly unlikely in economically disadvantaged households. Instead, they'll be forced to travel to seek out such equipment in commercial locations and then pay to scan the alternative form of ID and print it out. This is an unacceptable and unnecessary barrier; voters must have the ability to make their voices heard equally so they can have a say in choosing representatives who will make key decisions impacting their lives. The state of Virginia has set a good example on implementing more accessible voter ID standards, which other states could model.
Fortunately, voters are speaking out against these attempts by a handful of politicians to create barriers to voting, in Georgia and across the country. As I’ve noted, we’ve seen a wave of corporate response in reaction to the Georgia law and similar bills in other states. CLC is working to engage with several corporate groups to help them best advocate for fair representation and accessible elections.
What should corporations do to stand up for the freedom to vote? We at CLC recommend that, as a best practice, corporations and groups representing them should lay out a series of standards they think legislation on voting should meet—standards that would ensure election laws provide as much flexibility as possible to voters and are nonpartisan. Then, corporations should call out states that don't meet those standards.
Safeguarding and advancing the freedom to vote will require more litigation and advocacy this year, and we at CLC are committed to doing our part to contribute to this effort. We are optimistic that we can move forward together and make the promise of democracy real for us all.
The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center is dedicated to advancing democracy through law at the federal, state and local levels, fighting for every American’s rights to responsive government and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic process.
