GA Senate Bill Targets Photo ID Requirements For Absentee Voting

ACROSS GEORGIA — Georgia voters could see major changes to absentee ballot voting, including an extra step that would require voters to make copies of their photo ID and mail them to election officials twice before being allowed to cast an absentee ballot, according to a proposed Senate bill introduced Wednesday.

Senate Bill 29, introduced by state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, would require voters to include an accepted form of photo ID when submitting an absentee ballot application and when returning the ballot itself to be counted. This would not apply to voters in the military, their family members or U.S. citizens living overseas.

State law already requires photo ID when voting in person, but not for absentee ballot voting.

This is the first major step to limit absentee voting in the state following Republican and former President Donald Trump's defeat to President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the November 2020 presidential election — an election that resulted in months of widespread voter fraud claims, particularly in Georgia, despite no indication of massive voter fraud to date.

Anavitarte, a freshman Republican senator from Dallas, did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Recently-elected U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff took to Twitter to address this proposed bill, saying he and other senators are trying to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to "stop voter suppression attempts like this one."

I'm working with colleagues to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to stop voter suppression attempts like this one.

Disenfranchisement will not be tolerated. https://t.co/vFFoOsWDXK
— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) January 28, 2021

According to election data, more Republicans than Democrats voted by absentee ballot in recent years; however, this changed in the 2020 general elections. Nearly twice as many Democrats returned absentee ballots in the November election, totaling more than 1.3 million people who voted by absentee ballot in Georgia for the presidential election.

Accepted forms of ID in Georgia include the following, as long as the ID includes a photo:

• A Georgia driver's license
• Georgia voter ID card
• U.S. passport
• Government employee ID card
• U.S. military ID card
• Tribal ID card