The latest on Georgia's new law suppressing voting access

Stacey Abrams, founder of Fair Fight Action, called Georgia's sweeping elections bill, which would restrict voting access and give state officials more powers over local elections, “nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0" in a statement tonight.

The bill passed the Georgia Senate earlier today by a 34-20 vote. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp later signed the bill.

The legislation would impose new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, empower state officials to take over local elections boards, limit the use ballot drop boxes and make it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water.

Read her full statement:

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has signed a sweeping elections bill that passed earlier Thursday by the state legislature.

In the span of a few hours Thursday, the GOP-controlled Georgia legislature sped the elections bill through two chambers, putting the battleground state on a course to impose new voting restrictions on citizens in a state that was pivotal to securing Democratic control of the White House and the US Senate this year.

The bill passed the Georgia Senate by a 34-20 vote.

More details: The legislation would impose new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, empower state officials to take over local elections boards, limit the use ballot drop boxes and make it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water.

Voting rights groups have slammed Georgia's far-reaching bill, particularly for its provisions aimed at the secretary of state and local election officials.

They argue that granting the state new powers over county elections bucks the tradition of local control and could lead to a scenario in which state officials swoop in to prevent a county from certifying its election results.

The bill is part of a larger effort by GOP-led legislatures across the country to pass restrictive voting measures in key states like Arizona, Michigan and Florida.

As of February, state legislators in 43 states have introduced more than 250 bills with restrictive voting provisions, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Some background: The bill comes as Georgia’s changing demographics have made the longtime Republican stronghold a key political battleground.

Last November, President Biden became the first Democrat in nearly three decades to win the state. And strong voter turnout in January helped send two Democrats to the US Senate, flipping control of the chamber to their party.

One of those new senators, Raphael Warnock, captured his seat in a special election and will be on the ballot again in 2022.

More than 250 bills to curb or complicate access to polls had been introduced in 43 state legislatures as of Feb. 19, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which is tracking the bills — and bills have since been introduced in at least two more states, North Carolina and Wisconsin, according to CNN reporting.

Florida, Arizona and Georgia were all battleground states in 2020 and host US Senate races in 2022. Republican legislative majorities and GOP governors are moving to make it more difficult to vote in these states.

Texas does not have a 2022 Senate race, but it will feature a race for governor in 2022. Republicans currently control all levers of the state government there.

There are proposals to make it more difficult to vote in other key states — Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — featuring 2022 Senate races, but divided government in those places will make restrictions more difficult to enact.

There is no Senate race in Michigan and there is also divided government there. (See a breakdown of state government control here.)

Republicans at the state level have moved swiftly to either roll back some easy access to voting or put new obstacles in the way of voters following losses in the 2020 presidential and US Senate elections.

They are doing this now for four key reasons:

In the span of a few hours Thursday, the GOP-controlled Georgia legislature sped a sweeping elections bill through two chambers, putting the battleground state on a course to impose new voting restrictions on citizens in a state that was pivotal to securing Democratic control of the White House and the US Senate this year.

The bill, passed the Georgia Senate by a 34-20 vote late Thursday afternoon, and heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who announced moments after the vote that he would sign it later Thursday.

The legislation would impose new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, empower state officials to take over local elections boards, limit the use ballot drop boxes and make it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water.

"It's like the Christmas tree of goodies for voter suppression," Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan said on the Senate floor as lawmakers considered the nearly 100-page bill.

Republicans cast the measure, dubbed The Election Integrity Act of 2021 as needing to boost confidence in elections after the 2020 election that saw former President Donald Trump make repeated, unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

The package is part of a national Republican effort that aims to restrict access to the ballot box following record turnout in the November election.

President Biden said in his first White House press conference Thursday that he will "do everything" in his power to halt efforts to restrict voting rights, saying that he thinks the efforts underway in state legislatures are "un-American."

About the bill: The Georgia bill — SB 202 — would limit drop boxes to the inside of early voting locations during voting hours, make giving food or drinks to a voter a misdemeanor, allow for unlimited challenges to voter registrations and eligibility, and grant state officials broad rights, including the ability to replace local election officials. It would also shorten the runoff cycle from the current nine weeks to just four weeks and remove the elected secretary of state as chair of the state election board.