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Georgia’s election integrity movement has achieved a crucial victory in the ongoing legal battles over the state’s “Election Integrity Act,” or SB 202.
On Tuesday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced in a press release that VoteAmerica, one of the organizations that challenged the law, had opted to dismiss its own claims.
“I commend VoteAmerica for recognizing that their initial claims weren’t supported by the facts, and that it would be a waste of taxpayer resources to continue them,” Raffensperger said.
According to the release, VoteAmerica sued Georgia over SB 202’s provisions that require third-party organizations sending out absentee ballot applications to include a disclaimer identifying themselves, prohibit the pre-filling of absentee ballot applications, and forbid sending duplicate applications to voters who have already requested absentee ballots.
Passed last year in the wake of the 2020 election, SB 202 quickly came under fire from Joe Biden and the Democrats, who claimed that the bill made voting more difficult for black Americans, likening the legislation to the Jim Crow-era discrimination faced by that community.
Republicans, however, have decried those aspersions, holding that the law makes it easier to vote legally and that it only makes cheating in elections more difficult.
Pointing to Georgia’s primary election this year as supporting evidence of this fact, Raffensperger noted Tuesday, “Despite the overheated rhetoric to the contrary by President Biden, Stacey Abrams, and their progressive allies, Georgia’s Election Integrity Act contains common-sense reforms like photo-ID for all forms of voting. We’re seeing a trend that the poll-tested rhetoric from opponents of the bill is not supported by the facts.”
However, despite his comments this week, it is worth noting that Georgia’s secretary of state has not always been a friend to Trump’s election integrity movement.
For instance, despite multiple claims of irregularities in the 2020 election, Raffensperger insisted that Georgia “ran a fair, honest election” before conducting any form of inquiry, telling 11Alive in January 2021 that he felt like “David going up against Goliath” for rejecting President Donald J. Trump’s requests for an investigation.
Further, election integrity group VoterGA alleged in June that Raffensperger had not fairly overseen his own primary election, noting that he had pushed to quickly certify the results despite voting discrepancies and potential legal violations.
Commenting on this at a Wyoming Save America rally in May, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell stated, “Brad Raffensperger is the biggest criminal in the country. … Brad gets 51 percent [of the vote]? No he didn’t. He stole that election.”
While those questions remain and the November midterms coming up fast, Georgia voters concerned about election security may find some comfort in knowing they will be heading to the polls with the “Election Integrity Act” still in place.
