Georgia Republicans push for photo ID for future absentee voting

Georgia Republicans are proposing stricter requirements to vote by mail following the 2020 presidential election.

President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win the state in over two decades, taking the Peach State over President Trump by a margin of over 12,000 votes.

Many of the votes cast for the former vice president were by mail. 

One specific GOP proposal would require a photo ID to cast a mail-in ballot, which voting rights advocates have said would disenfranchise legal voters.

“Voters casting their ballots in person must show a photo ID, and we should consider applying that same standard to mail-in balloting,” Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said in remarks streamed recently, according to The Associated Press.

State Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan (R) also expressed support for the idea, saying “I don’t think there should be different standards for the same process,” according to the AP.

Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) have both caught the ire of Trump and his allies for pushing back against claims of widespread voter fraud in the state. However, both have expressed support for the tightened voting requirements.

Raffensperger has also floated the idea of authorizing officials at the state level to intervene in cases where county officials have systemic election administration problems, according to the AP.

Andrea Young, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, has countered that there is no reason for tightening the requirements when officials have said there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. 

“What is the problem that you’re trying to solve?” she said. “The rule should be first, ‘Do no harm’ when it comes to democracy, and whenever there are more restrictions being put on a process, you run the risk of disenfranchising Georgia citizens.”

“What this says to me is that they just don’t want people voting,” state Sen. Jen Jordan (D), who represents the Atlanta area, told the AP. “And they specifically don’t want Democrats voting, or people that don’t support their chosen candidates voting, and they’re going to try to make it as hard as possible.”

The new proposals for voting by mail come as both of the state’s Senate races between Sen. David Perdue (R) and Democrat Jon Ossoff and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) and Democrat Raphael Warnock are set to take place in early January. The races will determine which party will control the Senate next year.