Georgia Republicans introduced legislation Tuesday to make it easier to remove voters through mass challenges, according to a copy of the bill sent to lawmakers and shared with NBC News by an aide to two of the bill’s sponsors.
Changes to the challenge rules to Senate Bill 221 were proposed Tuesday night, part of a committee surrogate superseding an earlier version of the bill.
A draft of the proposed legislation was released hours after NBC News exclusively revealed that at least 92,000 voter registrations were challenged in Georgia last year. Amateur fraud hunters made extensive use of voter rolls, public records (including U.S. Postal Service change of address data), and some door-to-door polling in their claims that voters were ineligible. .
Most of the challenges were rejected, with some counties saying broadly that mail forwarding was not enough evidence to conclude that a voter had moved. Some people are spending time at other addresses without leaving residence in the state, election administrators and advocates said.
New SB 221 would change that, noting that appearing in the postal service’s change of address database «shall constitute sufficient cause to sustain a challenge against the voter» unless a voter is found to meet certain exceptions, such as being a student. .
It’s unclear whether sustaining a challenge would result in voter registration being canceled or require further action by county or election administrators, but voting rights advocates warned against the bill at a briefing Tuesday.
«If being in the [National Change of Address System] meant it was enough to get him off the voter rolls, that would be disastrous and I expect him to be thrown out of court immediately,» said Vasu Abhiraman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, arguing that federal rights law vote would prohibit such a rule.
Challenges made within 45 days of the election would be delayed, under the legislation.
Jason Frazier, a Fulton County resident who filed thousands of 2022 voter challenges, spoke in defense of the bill at a committee hearing Tuesday.
«For the most part, I love the bill. I think it will help a lot with voter challenges,» he said. «I’m not trying to disenfranchise anyone, but we have to do this the right way.»
The bill would also increase security and surveillance of mailboxes in Georgia, requiring election officials to have video cameras and enough lighting to show voters’ faces when they drop off their ballots.
The recordings, the bill says, must be made available online.
“It encourages intimidation and disenfranchisement of vigilantes,” said Esosa Osa, deputy executive director of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action.