Local voting rights advocates said the voting process and possibly even the result of November’s presidential election in Georgia may have already been imperiled by a series of new laws and state regulatory changes designed to create obstacles for Black voters and cast doubt on the outcome of elections.
The latest example is a series of Georgia Elections Board rule changes, including one passed just this week that requires a “reasonable inquiry” prior to certifying election results. The rule would give members of county election boards — the bodies that effectively run Georgia’s elections at the local level — pretext to challenge election results.
“You don’t need to know about elections to know what is going on is wrong,” said Cathy Woolard, a former Atlanta City Council president who recently resigned as chair of the Fulton County Registration and Elections Board.
Woolard’s remarks came during a Wednesday press conference called by voting rights group Fair Fight Action. The event, at Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta’s West End, was intended to mark the 59th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark law that enacted a series of protections for Black voters in the formerly segregated South to ensure they have access to the ballot box, while also examining the impact of new voting laws and regulations.
It was also held just a day after the state election board voted 3-2 to approve the reasonable inquiry rule.
Woolard called the measure a premeditated effort by some Republicans to cast doubt on November’s election results and to jump-start potential legal challenges that would put the outcome in the hands of the courts or possibly the GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.
“There will be court battles and there will be county offices that won’t be real sure what they are supposed to do,” Woolard said.
