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. 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.” 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.

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