(The Center Square) – Georgia Republicans and Democrats differed significantly on the intent of a sweeping election bill.
House Bill 397 would require the Secretary of State to stop sharing voter rolls with the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC. The Secretary of State would no longer oversee the Georgia State Election Board, but it would fall under the State Accounting Office.
The legislation also bans local elections officials from receiving absentee ballots dropped off the Saturday before an election.
Sen. Randal Mangham, D-Stone Mountain, said the bill was designed to suppress the vote.
“If we do this bill, what we’ll find is that it does not benefit the least, the lost or the left out,” Mangham said.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, criticized Mangham’s speech, questioning whether or not Mangham had read the bill.
“If he has read the bill, he did not articulate one specific element from this bill that he was opposed to,” Dolezal said. “He drug up an argument from the darkest days of this country and tried to transport them into this bill in quite frankly, one of the most intellectually dishonest speeches I have ever heard from this well. If you are going to accuse one of our colleagues of having a singular purpose, as he stated, that this bill was designed with one aim, that is to suppress the vote, if you are going to dishonor one of my friends in that way you better have the receipts.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday the Justice Department dismissed a lawsuit filed over a 2021 Georgia election law, saying claims of voter suppression were “false.”
In the two elections since Senate Bill 202 passed, surveys show a high percentage of voters said they were satisfied with their experience at the polls.
HB397 passed the Senate 33-23.
