It took some wheeling and dealing, but Georgia lawmakers passed significant election integrity bills last week — just in the nick of time.
As The Federalist reported last week, the Georgia State Senate was prepared to take up House Bill 976 — a meat and potatoes election integrity package — on the final day of the General Assembly’s session. As is often the case in legislation facing Sine Die, it took some maneuvering to get the package over the finish line. Lawmakers added the provisions of HB 976 to Senate Bill 189 and passed the latter in the House before it went back to the Senate — just as the clock was ticking down on the session.
“I’m proud of (GOP) Chairman Josh McKoon and our GOP Election Confidence Task Force and grassroots volunteers who have been working hard for the last two years to improve on an already very good SB 202,” Brad Carver, Atlanta attorney and chairman of the Georgia GOP’s Election Confidence Task Force, told me.
The panel was created in the wake of the “dramatic weaknesses” exposed in Georgia’s election administration following the pandemic-influenced 2020 general election. SB 202, or the Election Integrity Act of 2021, fixed a good deal of what needed fixing in the Peach State’s election administration, which was riddled with irregularities and integrity failures. But advocates for free and fair elections still needed to deal with Georgia’s bloated voter rolls and public accountability measures to restore confidence in elections.
“We had
