Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021: How Strict Voter ID Requirements Negatively Impact People of Color

On March 25, 2021, Georgia passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, also known as Senate Bill 202, following the first Democratic victories in presidential and Senate elections in Georgia in a generation. The law enacted several restrictions that curtail access to absentee ballots for voters in booming urban and suburban counties. But the tightening of ID requirements will have the most harmful impact on the turnout of voters of color. President Joseph Biden went so far as to call this law “the 21st century Jim Crow,” referring to laws that effectively blocked Black men and women from voting in the American South. [1] According to Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, “These are laws that attempt to make it more difficult for certain kinds of voters to participate, particularly African Americans and Latinos.” [2] Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 constitutes a form of voter suppression, as it will negatively impact minority voters due to its strict new ID requirements for absentee ballots, due to minorities disproportionately lacking access to the required documents, and possible financial and transportation burdens in attaining forms of identification.

Georgia’s new legislation tightens absentee voter ID requirements, thus negatively impacting voter turnout among communities of color. Georgia legislation formerly required that voters only sign their absentee ballot applications as a form of authentication. However, absentee voters will now be required to produce the number from a driver's license or another state-issued form of identification in addition to their signature. Senate Bill 202 states, “In order to confirm the identity of the voter, such form shall require the elector to provide his or her name, date of birth, address as registered, … and the number of his or her Georgia driver’s license or identification card issued… and the elector shall provide a copy of a form of identification,” where “elector” is synonymous with “voter” pursuant to their participation in the state’s electoral process. [3] The law requires several arduous steps for proving identification, and these strict requirements disparately impact minority groups. Minority voters with lower incomes are less likely to have driver's licenses, and lack access to obtain government-issued picture identification that are required for an absentee ballot. In 2006, Matt A. Barreto, Stephen A. Nuño, and Gabriel R. Sanchez conducted a study after Arizona imposed strict new requirements that identification be shown at the polling place before a citizen could vote. They found that voting laws that require specific or multiple forms of identification will disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities, immigrant populations, and those with lower incomes: “For five out of six types of voter identification, Latinos, Asians, Blacks and immigrants were statistically less likely to have access to ID, as compared to Whites and the native born… Asians and Blacks were over 20% less likely to have a driver’s license plus another form of identification, as compared to Whites, while Latinos were 13% less likely.” [4] These strict ID requirements are barriers to voter registration, and resemble the discriminatory measures used to disenfranchise African Americans during the Jim Crow Era— such as poll taxes, literacy tests, felony disenfranchisement laws, and grandfather clauses. [5] Georgia’s legislation aims to curtail ballot access in urban communities, where racial minorities and Democratic voters are more populous. The burdensome requirements will likely discourage communities of color from registering to vote. The legislation also states that if a voter fails to complete all of these steps, “such as printing a date of birth or, in some cases, supplying incomplete Social Security numbers, their ballots may be thrown out.” [6] Under Georgia’s identification requirements, racial and ethnic minorities do not have as much access to documents which could confirm their name, address, and date of birth, due, in part, to their reduced interaction with institutions capable of providing such documents—such as banks or state departments of motor vehicles. “With regard to a recent bank statement, Asians were almost 24% less likely to have access, Blacks about 17% less likely, Latinos 15% less likely, and immigrants 7% less likely,” Barreto, Nuño and Sanchez further found. [7] Since minority voters are less likely to have access to the documents necessary to confirm their identification for an absentee ballot, Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 makes it more difficult for the votes of people of color to count, and therefore is a form of voter suppression.

The groundwork for voter ID legislation and other election measures imposed by states in recent years was built by two significant Supreme Court rulings. The cases of Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008) opened the door for stricter ID measures in all states. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed most discriminatory voting practices, designed by southern legislatures to suppress the African American vote. [8] In district court, Shelby County, Alabama, requested a declaration that Sections 5 and 4(b) be ruled unconstitutional and a permanent injunction be placed against their execution. [9] Section 4(b) contained a coverage formula designed to include jurisdictions that were the most pervasively discriminatory and subject them to special provisions of the Voting Rights Act, ensuring that previously barred minorities in those jurisdictions would be able to exercise their right to vote. Many of the jurisdictions targeted by this formula were located in the Deep South. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act prohibited eligible districts from enacting changes to their election laws and procedures without gaining official authorization. [10] In a 5-4 decision favoring Shelby County, the Court ruled in 2013 that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was unconstitutional because the formula used to determine coverage was based on data that was forty years old, and was no longer responsive to current conditions in the impacted voting districts. [11] After this ruling, several states passed voter ID laws that eliminated online voter registration, early voting, same-day registration, and pre-registration for minors approaching the age of eighteen. In the Assessment of Minority Voting Rights Access, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that, in North Carolina and Texas, changes that were previously not cleared by the federal government under the Voting Rights Act, including strict voter ID laws, were immediately implemented, even after several courts found that these restrictions were “racially discriminatory.” [12] The Shelby ruling is significant in understanding how Georgia was able to enact strict voter ID requirements in their new legislation under the Election Integrity Act of 2021, and it demonstrates that the undermining of the Voting Rights Act has led to voting restrictions that negatively impact minorities.

The second Supreme Court case that has had a significant impact on strict voter ID requirements is Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008). The Indiana Legislature passed a law in 2005 requiring all voters to provide a photo ID issued by the United States or the State of Indiana while casting a ballot in person. Plaintiffs, including the local Democratic Party and interest groups representing minorities, asserted that the statute imposed an unreasonable burden on the right to vote. The Court voted to uphold the legislation by a margin of 6 to 3, with the majority asserting that the photo ID requirement was justified by Indiana's legitimate state interest in minimizing voter fraud. Characterizing the state’s interest as ‘neutral and nondiscriminatory,’ the Court found that it outweighed the slight burden that the photo ID law imposed on voters' rights. [13] In his dissenting opinion, Justice David Souter listed several financial and transportation burdens in attaining a driver’s license or other form of identification. He stated, “The first set of burdens shown in these cases is the travel costs and fees necessary to get one of the limited variety of federal or state photo identifications needed to cast a regular ballot under the Voter ID Law… Poor, old, and disabled voters who do not drive a car, however, may find the trip prohibitive… It translates into an obvious economic cost (whether in work time lost, or getting and paying for transportation) that an Indiana voter must bear to obtain an ID.” [14] The travel costs and fees of obtaining a form of identification disproportionately deter the poor and minorities from voting, as Barreto, Nuño and Sanchez found that minority, low-income, and less-educated residents are less likely to have access to valid photo identification. [15] In Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissenting opinion, he emphasized Justice Souter’s points and added, “For one thing, an Indiana nondriver, most likely to be poor, elderly, or disabled, will find it difficult and expensive to travel to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, particularly if he or she resides in one of the many Indiana counties lacking a public transportation system… For another, many of these individuals may be uncertain about how to obtain the underlying documentation, usually a passport or a birth certificate.” [16] According to Barreto, Nuño, and Sanchez, 18 percent of the overall Indiana population does not have a government ID, 17 percent of white Indiana residents, and about 28 percent of black voters. [17] As a result, the voter-ID legislation in Indiana restricts the voting rights of around one-sixth of Indiana voters, and disproportionately affects black voters. The financial and transportation burdens could also apply to citizens in Georgia without identification. Furthermore, these requirements apply to ID requirements for casting a ballot in person, so these harsh restrictions make it even more difficult for applying for an absentee ballot. Georgia’s legislation strictly regulates proof of identification for absentee voting, when prior to this law, identification was not required to vote absentee by mail. The burdens of obtaining identification demonstrates that the voter ID restrictions of Georgia’s legislation would discourage minority and low-income communities from voting.  

In the wake of tight losses to Democrats, Georgia's recently passed Election Integrity Act of 2021 has made absentee voting more difficult, and has imposed new restrictions and complications bound to negatively impact minority voters in urban and suburban areas. Residents of Georgia are required to provide several documents in order to confirm their name, date of birth, and address, and it is statistically proven that minorities tend to have less access to several forms of identification that state the required information such as bank statements or utility bills. By implementing several difficult steps in applying for an absentee ballot, and discarding them if they are not completed correctly, Georgia’s legislation reduces the chances of minority votes being counted. Two landmark Supreme Court cases, Shelby County v. Holder (2013), and Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008), have led to stricter ID requirements in other states, and have laid the groundwork for Georgia’s legislation. In the dissenting opinions for these cases, Supreme Court Justices pointed to financial and transportation burdens that prevent voters, especially socio-economic minorities, from attaining the proper identification to vote. Studies in recent years have proven that strict ID requirements have disproportionately affected African American, Hispanic, and Asian voters, demonstrating that Georgia’s legislation is likely to have the same effect for absentee ballot applicants. As more states continue to pass restrictive voter legislation, Georgia’s legislation is significant as it aims to make voting more difficult for Georgia's substantial Black population, which was critical to President Biden's victory in November 2020, and Senators Raphael Warnock’s and Jon Ossoff's victories in the January 2021 runoff elections. With its alarming similarities to the Jim Crow Laws, the Election Integrity Act of 2021 may be just the beginning of another wave of voter suppression legislation across the country.

Edited by Cole Tom

Sources:

[1] Glenn Thrush, Biden Calls Georgia's Restrictive Voter Law 'an Atrocity', The New York Times (March 26, 2021), online at https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/26/us/biden-news-today/biden-condemns-georgias-crackdown-on-voting-access-as-jim-crow-in-the-21st-century (visited August 12, 2021). 

[2] Mark Walsh, “Voting Blocks: Appeals Courts Are Dismantling Stricter Voter ID Laws Enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court Opened the Door for Such Measures,” 102 ABA Journal 11, 34–43 (2016). 

[3] H.R.1274 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Election Official Integrity Act of 2021, Congress.gov (February 24, 2021), online at https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1274 (visited July 20, 2021).

[4] Matt A. Barreto, Stephen A. Nuño, and Gabriel R. Sanchez, “VOTER ID REQUIREMENTS AND THE DISENFRANCHISEMENTS OF LATINO, BLACK AND ASIAN VOTERS,” 10, (2007). 

[5] Farrell Evans, How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations, HISTORY, online at https://www.history.com/news/jim-crow-laws-black-vote (visited July 20, 2021).

[6] Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein, What Georgia’s Voting Law Really Does, The New York Times, online at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/georgia-voting-law-annotated.html.

(visited April 2, 2021). 

[7] Matt A. Barreto, Stephen A. Nuño, and Gabriel R Sanchez, “VOTER ID REQUIREMENTS,” 11.

[8] Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. L. 89-110, 79 Stat. 437.

[9] Shelby County v. Holder, Oyez, online at https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96 (visited July 20, 2021). 

[10] Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. L. 89-110, 79 Stat. 437.

[11] Shelby County v. Holder. 

[12] LaShonda Brenson, “Assessment of Minority Voting Rights Access,” n.d., 406.

[13] Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, Oyez, online at https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-21 (visited July 20, 2021). 

[14]  Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 U.S. 181 (2008), Justia Law, online at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/ (visited July 20, 2021). 

[15] Matt A. Barreto, Stephen A. Nuño, and Gabriel R. Sanchez, “The Disproportionate Impact of Voter-ID Requirements on the Electorate: New Evidence from Indiana,” 42 PS: Political Science and Politics 1, 111–16, (2009).

[16] Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd. 

[17] Matt A. Barreto, Stephen A. Nuño, and Gabriel R. Sanchez, “The Disproportionate Impact of Voter-ID Requirements,” 111–16.