The Georgia General Assembly obviously got the message. They just didn’t like what they heard. Instead of listening, they’ve decided to hang up on us.
A slate of no fewer than 30 election laws now before the General Assembly will undo that functioning infrastructure, not because it didn’t work or is flawed but precisely because it did work.
Proposed legislation will do away with at-will absentee voting, require a photo ID to obtain an absentee ballot, ban dropboxes, and end automatic voter registration and renewal when updating your driver’s license or state ID, among other things.
In a move aimed directly at the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia, another piece of proposed legislation would mandate that Boards of Elections and Registrars can expend only public monies, which would have made our recent underwriting of nine absentee ballot boxes for Chatham County impossible.
28-Year-Old Confederate Statue Finally Removed From Georgia Courthouse
Some politicians were nearly brought to tears at removal of the monument, which culminated a long battle to right a wrong to local communities of color.
February 10, 2021 at 5:48 pm
A Confederate monument erected as recent as 28 years ago was taken down on Friday after Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to have it removed from a Georgia courthouse.
The commissioners agreed in January to move the monument from outside of a Lawrenceville, Georgia, courthouse and into storage until it concluded a legal battle to determine its fate, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While state law has strict restrictions against the relocation of Confederate monuments, the county commissioners found an exception due to two separate acts of vandalism that threatened the monument’s safety, thus allowing the group to move it to another location.
2 Confederate statues were removed in Georgia within 3 days
elisfkc2 / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
Two Confederate statues were removed from public locations in the state of Georgia this week.
This comes as cities across the nation have grappled with how to handle statues of historical figures with troubling pasts, including Confederate generals, slave owners and colonizers.
Monument put in storage
One such vandalism was the catalyst for the removal of the Confederate monument that stood outside the Gwinnett County Courthouse in Lawrenceville.
The stone monument, inscribed with “1861-1865 Lest We Forget” and installed in 1993, was removed and put into storage Thursday, according to CNN affiliate WXIA.
Proposed bill to require two copies of photo ID to vote absentee in Georgia
State Sen. Jason Anavitarte introduced the bill as the first major proposal to limit absentee voting in the southern state.
Loading the player.
Politicians have proposed adding measures to submitting an absentee ballot in Georgia following two major elections won by Democratic candidates.
Jason Anavitarte introduced Senate Bill 29 which would require residents to provide two separate photo identifications, both when applying for absentee ballots, and when returning them.
The move is being critiqued by Fair Fight, a voting rights group, who claimed Republican politicians are only attempting to sway elections in their favor after losing the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State, and the subsequent runoff elections in January.