Third group files legal challenge to Georgia’s restrictive new elections law

Georgia’s restrictive new election measure was hit on Tuesday with a third lawsuit accusing the law of race-based discrimination less than week after its passage. 

In a 91-page complaint filed in federal court in Atlanta, voting rights advocates alleged that the Republican-crafted legislation illegally suppresses minority voters’ rights in violation of constitutional protections and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed the sweeping elections bill into law last Thursday. It tightens voting rules by limiting the use of ballot drop boxes and setting photo ID requirements for absentee voting, among other restrictions.

Georgia stunned the political world by electing two Democrats in a pair of January Senate runoff elections and voting for President Biden, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since former President Clinton in 1992.

The new Georgia voting law was among dozens of measures being considered by state legislatures across the country after former President Trump repeatedly blamed his 2020 election loss on widespread voter fraud, a claim that is not supported by evidence and has been shot down by state elections officials, the courts and his own Justice Department. 

The latest lawsuit, brought by Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and several other voting rights advocates, draws a direct line between the new Georgia law and the state’s history of racially motivated disenfranchisement. 

“Georgia has been unrelenting in its effort to suppress the political participation of people of color,” the lawsuit states. 

The litigation follows two similar lawsuits filed in recent days by other voting rights organizations.