Atlanta lawmakers approved an ordinance on Monday outlining how citizen-driven ballot referendum petitions must be processed moving forward.
But voting rights advocates say they’re disappointed in the new law’s signature verification requirement, which they believe could circumvent the will of voters in a city known for Black civil rights leaders who were champions of voting rights.
A city government led largely by Black Democrats using a signature match verification process promoted by Republicans to determine whether those who sign ballot petitions are, in fact, registered voters, amounts to voter suppression that puts an “undue burden” on the public, according to Mary Hooks, an Atlanta resident who also serves as national field secretary for the Movement for Black Lives and as a spokesperson for Cop City Vote, the organization pushing for a referendum on the planned Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
“It creates discrimination towards Black people, elderly people, folks with disabilities,” the 42-year-old Hooks told Capital B Atlanta via text message Tuesday morning. “I’m disappointed that we would use an archaic way of verifying a signature in order to determine if someone is [on the list of registered voters].”
Hooks said establishing an official ballot referendum process is a “positive thing” following months of confusion over the municipal clerk’s refusal to begin counting petition signatures in support of putting the training center, aka “Cop City,” up for a citywide vote.
Those delays are what led City Council member Liliana Bakhtiari to initially sponsor the ordinance last year; on Monday, the full council approved it in a 10-5 vote.
Bakhtiari, ironically, voted against her own legislation on Monday, along with four other council members, in response to the measure being amended with the signature match provision to which they objected.
An adviser from the city law department told lawmakers before their vote Monday that the signature verification provision is required for the ordinance to comply with the Home Rule Act and other Georgia laws that establish legislative and “home rule” powers granted to municipal governments.
“It is our opinion that to remove such [signature] verification procedures would be in [violation] of the Home Rule Act,” a city law department staffer said Monday.
A visibly frustrated Bahktiari emphasized that signature verification can pose problems for Atlanta residents, including the elderly and the physically disabled, before voting against her own legislation.
“I have tried all that I can,” she said before the vote.
The city’s ballot referendum ordinance establishes previously unofficial rules and a timeline for city officials to process petitions submitted by residents working to ensure voters have a direct say on public matters, such as construction of the public safety training center.
Georgia law requires ballot referendums for cities with more than 100,000 people be signed by at least 15% of registered voters who cast ballots in the last municipal election cycle.
The new law gives the municipal clerk’s office five days to count ballot petition signatures after they’ve been submitted. The clerk’s office then has a 50-day deadline to verify that the submitted signatures match the ones included in each signatories’ state voter registration file.
The outlined process is something for which Cop City Vote advocates have been clamoring since they submitted their referendum on the training center in September.
After Monday’s meeting, Hooks and others challenged Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens to order city attorneys to drop their appeal of a judge’s ruling that extended the deadline for Cop City Vote referendum supporters to gather the signatures needed to put the training center on the ballot.
“At this point, we’re ready to get our signatures verified and what can make that real is our mayor dropping the appeal in the 11th Circuit Court,” Hooks said.
The mayor’s office hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
