Republicans look to implement voter restrictions after election season

Georgia will be the focal point of the GOP push to change state election laws

Jan 24, 2021

Republican lawmakers across the country are preparing numerous new voting restrictions after former President Donald Trump’s election loss.

After Democrats narrowly took both Georgia Senate seats and President Joe Biden won the state by an even smaller margin, Georgia will be the focal point of the GOP push to change state election laws.

Republicans in red states as well as battlegrounds continue to repeat Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election and are using those claims as an excuse to tighten access to the polls.

Signs line a road at a Gwinnett County voting location on January 5, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. Polls have opened across Georgia in the two runoff elections, pitting incumbents Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) against Democratic candidates Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)

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Some Republican officials have not bothered to hide their motivations, making it clear that they don’t believe they can win unless the rules change.

“They don’t have to change all of them, but they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning,” Alice O’Lenick, a Republican on the Gwinnett County, Ga., board of elections in suburban Atlanta, told the Gwinnett Daily Post last week. She has since resisted calls to step down.

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According to POLITICO, Georgia Republicans have proposed a number of changes, from imposing limits on who is eligible to vote by mail to limiting the use of drop boxes, which allow people to return absentee ballots without using the postal system.

voting rights advocate @staceyabrams warns that efforts are already underway to suppress voting in future elections, now that Republicans have seen "that, when more people can vote, regardless of party…they may not win." https://t.co/01PAnH7fh5
— Judy Woodruff (@JudyWoodruff) January 23, 2021

The Republican state Senate caucus has endorsed ending no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia, which was disproportionately used by Democratic voters in the 2020 elections. More than one-third of Biden’s votes in Georgia were cast by mail, versus just 18 percent of Trump’s votes, POLITICO reported.

The chair of the Texas Republican Party wants to make “election integrity” the top legislative priority in 2021 and is requesting to reduce the number of days of early voting. Jason Miller, a top Trump adviser, told the conservative site Just The News that Trump intended to remain involved in “voting integrity” efforts, ensuring the matter stays on the minds of Republicans.

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