5 State Laws Based on Voter Fraud Myths that Will Hamper Future Elections

Geor­gia was the subject of a storm of litig­a­tion over the 2020 elec­tion, threats of viol­ence and harass­ment toward elec­tion offi­cials and voters, and targeted attempts to change the elec­tion results — includ­ing an hour-long phone call in which Trump urged the state’s top elec­tion offi­cial to “find” enough votes for him to win. Despite their univer­sal fail­ure in court, many of the Big Lie–in­spired false claims made in these lawsuits motiv­ated legis­lat­ive provi­sions that will be in place for the 2022 elec­tions.

Geor­gia Senate Bill 202 

GA S.B. 202, enacted last year, responds to the lies pushed in these base­less lawsuits with remark­able preci­sion. In one case, a plaintiff falsely claimed that private funds were provided to Fulton County to “pay ballot harvesters” and to “pay for . . . the plan to remove the poll watch­ers from one polit­ical party so that the crit­ical respons­ib­il­ity of determ­in­ing . . . the valid­ity of the count could be conduc­ted without over­sight.” She also alleged that “absentee voting records demon­strate illegal votes being coun­ted and legal votes not being coun­ted” in excess of 50,000 votes.

Other cases claimed that the state’s use of drop boxes some­how increased the risk of fraud — another popu­lar Big Lie conspir­acy theory. Courts rejec­ted these lawsuits, and Geor­gia Secret­ary of State Brad Raffen­sper­ger’s testi­mony to the Janu­ary 6 commit­tee thor­oughly debunked these claims.

However, S.B. 202 seem­ingly valid­ates these alleg­a­tions by prohib­it­ing local elec­tion admin­is­trat­ors from accept­ing fund­ing from private sources and expand­ing the legal rights of poll watch­ers to observe elec­tions without constraints by elec­tion admin­is­trat­ors. The law also limits the avail­ab­il­ity of drop boxes and restricts access to mail voting by impos­ing stricter iden­ti­fic­a­tion require­ments for absentee voters and short­en­ing the window to apply for absentee ballots. Tellingly, one of S.B. 202’s cospon­sors echoed wide­spread conspir­acies support­ing the Big Lie, suggest­ing in an op-ed that unre­li­able mail ballots changed the outcome of certain races in 2020.

Geor­gia Senate Bill 441

Although there is abso­lutely no evid­ence of wide­spread voter fraud in Geor­gia or any other state, S.B. 441 grants the Geor­gia Bureau of Invest­ig­a­tion the author­ity to invest­ig­ate voter fraud and refer any perceived viol­a­tions for prosec­u­tion. This bill directs even more resources toward invest­ig­at­ing fraud and opens up the risk of polit­ic­ally motiv­ated prosec­u­tions, which is partic­u­larly concern­ing when viewed along­side the range of new penal­ties created by S.B. 202. 

County-Specific Bills

In addi­tion to chal­len­ging certain voting meth­ods, elec­tion deni­al­ists directly attacked local elec­tion offi­cials in court, blam­ing them for the results of the 2020 elec­tion and accus­ing them of miscon­duct. Over a dozen lawsuits were filed against county boards of elec­tions, alleging fraud and seek­ing to block certi­fic­a­tion or over­turn the elec­tion results.

The Geor­gia legis­lature respon­ded to these cases as well by wrest­ing power from certain county boards of elec­tions, creat­ing the poten­tial for partisan inter­fer­ence in the admin­is­tra­tion of elec­tions. These county boards are respons­ible for admin­is­ter­ing elec­tions, count­ing votes, and certi­fy­ing results. S.B. 202 grants the state board of elec­tions the author­ity to inter­fere with how local elec­tions are run by remov­ing profes­sional elec­tion offi­cials and taking control of elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion in specific juris­dic­tions.

Addi­tion­ally, Geor­gia passed at least eight county-specific bills since 2020 that restruc­ture local boards of elec­tions. These restruc­tur­ings have often led to greater partisan advant­age and in partic­u­lar have removed Black Demo­crats from several boards.