Among the most high-profile provisions of the controversial new Georgia election law is a change in how the state verifies the identity of voters who request and cast absentee ballots.
The change eliminates signature-matching — a process that can be subjective at times — as the method of confirming absentee voters’ identities. Instead, if voters have a driver’s license number or a state ID number, they are required to use that to verify who they are.
This change has been criticized by many as likely to make it more difficult for Georgians, specifically minorities who are more likely to vote Democratic, to vote by mail.
“The new election bill in Georgia is not about showing ID to vote,” Atlantic writer Jemele Hill wrote. “Republicans are salty the state went blue, and they resent that their power was taken away by black voters. They want a rigged game because they’re too lazy to come up with a new vision and compete for votes.”