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Caption Voters wait in line at the Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections during early voting in the 2020 Presidential Election. Credit: Grant Blankenship
While new U.S. Census data shows Georgia added more than a million people over the last decade, an even larger change in registered voters and who they vote for will be key considerations when lawmakers begin assigning residents into new voting districts this fall.
Population figures released this week provide a starting point for determining how Georgia’s 10,711,908 people will be split up into legislative and Congressional districts of equal proportions.
But the political leanings of the state’s 7.6 million active voters including the five million that flocked to the polls last November will be an equally important metric in deciding where lines are drawn.
Credit: Stephen Fowler
It s Crossover Day in the Georgia State Capitol, where lawmakers could work late into the day trying to pass bills out of one chamber or the other to be considered in the final days of the 2021 session. Several high-profile bills could be discussed, including an overhaul of the citizen s arrest law, voting changes, online sports betting and more.
You can watch the House chamber here, and the Senate chamber here.
In the Georgia Senate, more than a dozen bills dealing with elections could see a vote, including an omnibus proposal that would end no-excuse absentee voting, a bill to create a statewide grand jury to hear election fraud, a measure to end automatic voter registration and other tweaks following the tumultuous 2020 election cycle.
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Caption Rep. Barry Fleming, Chairman of the House Special Committee on Election Integrity, is one of many Republican lawmakers that voted to approve no-excuse absentee voting in 2005. Credit: Georgia House
A partisan divide over voting rights is nothing new for Georgia lawmakers: For years, Republicans have pushed changes they say would eliminate voter fraud while Democrats argue those measures amount to voter suppression that would disenfranchise minority voters.
That’s still true in 2021, as a raft of election bills work their way through the legislature that would drastically alter the state’s voting landscape. While many of the proposed changes are new, others resurrect arguments from the last major overhaul of Georgia’s absentee voting rules back in 2005 only with the roles reversed.