A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022
nature, to exactly match existing
driver or Social Security records.
The rejection rates in 2018 re-
flected a significant racial dispari-
ty. That year, around 5 percent of
Black voters’ ballots were reject-
ed, while just 3.6 percent of White
voters’ were. This year, the figures
were 1.2 percent and 0.9 percent,
respectively, according to data on
voter ethnicity from the voter file
company L2.
Turnout, meanwhile, was up
substantially among voters in
both t he Democratic and Republi-
can primaries. Among the voting-
age population, 23 percent cast
ballots, compared with 14.5 per-
cent in 2018.
On the Republican side,
1.2 million Georgians voted, more
than twice the number who
turned out in 2018. Even in Demo-
crat Stacey Abrams’s uncontested
bid for her party’s gubernatorial
nomination, 720,000 people vot-
ed in the Democratic primary — a
nearly 20 percent increase over
2018.
The surge in participation re-
flected how competitive the GOP
races for governor and secretary
of state were. Voting rights groups
said it also stemmed from their
hard work: Ninety-five percent of
eligible people in the state areregistered to vote this year, ac-
cording to state data, among the
highest rates in the country.
The New Georgia Project, Rock
the Vote and Black Voters Matter,
among other groups, spent mil-
lions on voter outreach and edu-
cation efforts in the run-up to the
primary.
Automatic voter registration
also jumped in the weeks before
the primary registration deadline
after the Georgia Department of
Driver Services reinstated an opt-
in registration function on its
website more than a year after an
overhaul of the site had inadver-
tently erased the function. Voting
advocates had noticed a sharp
decline in registrations and
flagged it for state officials.
“Turnout is certainly an indica-
tion that Georgia voters are very
motivated and determined to cast
their ballots this year. They saw
the power their votes had in 2020
and 2021 and are ready to make
history again,” said Xakota Espi-
noza, a spokesperson for Fair
Fight Action, a voting rights or-
ganization. “The primary was an
important test run for figuring
out what additional w ork needs to
be done to mitigate the impacts of
S.B. 202.”
Espinoza said one particulararea of concern is rejection rates
for absentee ballot applications.
While rejections of ballots went
down, rejections of applications
went up, from 1.4 percent to
2.3 percent, according to The
Post’s analysis.
Critics of S.B. 202 accused its
Republican authors of making it
harder to apply for a mail ballot by
moving up the deadline. Missing
the deadline was the most com-
mon reason applications were re-
jected.
But some nonpartisan voting
advocates spoke out in favor of the
new deadline, which was intend-
ed to establish a cutoff so that
voters would not receive ballots so
close to the election that they
would not be able to return them
in time.
There is also a significant racial
disparity in the application rejec-
tion numbers: 3.2 percent of
Black voters’ applications were
rejected, whereas the figure is
1.6 percent for White voters.
Every voter whose application
for a mail ballot was rejected for
lack of an identification number
received a provisional ballot, al-
lowing them a second opportu-
nity to vote so long as they provid-
ed the necessary ID, according to
the secretary of state’s office.BY MATTHEW BROWN,
AMY GARDNER
AND LENNY BRONNERlawrenceville, ga. — Turnout
set modern records for a midterm
primary. Ballot rejections plum-
meted. And Republican leaders
were quick to pronounce that the
relatively problem-free election
on Tuesday in Georgia offered
evidence that concerns about the
state’s new voting law, passed last
year, had been overblown.
“The incredible turnout we
have seen demonstrates once and
for all that Georgia’s Election In-
tegrity Act struck a good balance
between the guardrails of access
and security,” said Georgia Secre-
tary of State Brad Raffensperger,
who won the Republican nomina-
tion for reelection Tuesday, in a
statement to The Washington
Post.
But voting rights groups and
Democrats, while celebrating the
high participation rates, had a
different interpretation: The high
turnout, they argued, was an out-
growth of years of painstaking
efforts to register and mobilize
voters — not a reflection of the
Election Integrity Act, which is
also known as Senate Bill 202.
And just because the primary
went smoothly, they said, doesn’t
mean there won’t be trouble in
November.
“Great efforts have been made
by the faith community to orga-
nize, educate and prepare voters
for S.B. 202. But comparing a
primary to the general is like
comparing apples to oranges,”
said Bishop Reginald Jackson,
who leads a group of more than
500 African Methodist Episcopal
churches i n Georgia that conduct-
ed voter registration and educa-
tion efforts.
The primary was the first major
test of Georgia’s voting system
since Republicans enacted the
new law. Proponents of the meas-
ure, passed amid false voting
fraud claims from former presi-
dent Donald Trump and his sup-
porters, say it will increase elec-
tion security. But voting rights
advocates have criticized the law
as a solution in search of a prob-
lem that needlessly restricts ac-
cess to the polls.
The law imposes new identifi-
cation requirements for those
casting ballots by mail, curtails
the use of drop boxes for absentee
ballots, makes it a crime for third-
party g roups to hand out food and
water to voters standing in line,
blocks the use of mobile voting
vans and prevents local govern-
ments from directly accepting
grants from the private sector for
election administration.
The law also requires poll
workers to redirect voters to their
home precinct if they arrive at the
wrong location before 5 p.m. Pro-
ponents of the change argue that
it ensures voters are casting bal-
lots in the correct local elections,
while critics say it can discourage
people from voting once they have
already arrived at a polling site.
No c ounties reported long lines
at polling sites or widespread is-
sues with voting systems on Tues-
day. As is typical, some polling
sites reported opening late or ex-
periencing understaffing, causing
several sites in the metro Atlanta
area to stay open later. Voters at
multiple sites observed by The
Post were turned away from the
polls and told to vote in a different
precinct, leading to some confu-
sion and frustration.
Rejection rates for mail-in bal-
lots, meanwhile, were far lower
than they were four years ago. An
analysis by The Post shows the
rates went from roughly 4.3 per-
cent to 1 percent.
The Post analyzed data re-
leased f rom the office of the secre-
tary of state as of 10 p.m. Thurs-
day. To allow for a proper compar-
ison, only data available two days
after the primary in 2018 was
used.
Voting advocates had predicted
that a new requirement t o provide
an identification number if voting
by mail — either the last four
digits of a Social Security number
or the number from a state ID —
would disenfranchise voters.
But the requirement replaced
another controversial rule that
had been in effect in 2018, the
previous midterm cycle. Known
as “exact match,” it had required
the information provided on mail
ballots, including the voter’s sig-Significant parts of the new
law’s impact won’t be fully known
until the fall general election, and
possibly even the fall of 202 4,
when the next presidential con-
test is expected to boost turnout
significantly. Advocates say they
are concerned about possible long
lines if voters are reluctant to vote
by mail because of the new ID
requirement. They also point to
the possible harm that could
come from a new prohibition bar-
ring the provision of food and
water to people standing in those
lines.
Republicans vehemently deny
it, but voting rights proponents
say they believe such measures
are racially motivated and will
require a vigorous response to
prevent the Black vote in Georgia
from being depressed.
“Over the last 18 months, ex-
tremists have shown they will do
just about anything to minimize
the African American vote in
Georgia,” said Jackson, the bish-
op. “Most of this initial data shows
what the faith community is do-
ing on the ground is working, but
we are not resting. We a re battling
racism and marginalization not
seen in decades, and we will not
rest until we ensure all African
Americans have the ability to vote
in November.”
At least on Tuesday, many vot-
ers said they had a positive experi-
ence casting their ballots.
“It was really easy, in and out,
no wait,” said Andrea Henderson,
a customer service administrator
in Duluth.
Henderson had helped count
ballots during the 2020 election,
when she and others worked over-
night to process the votes amid
backlogs and long lines.
Lamar Banks, a maintenance
technician and Army veteran who
lives in Gwinnett County, said he
had been expecting a long line
this year but was pleasantly sur-
prised. He sped through the proc-
ess.
“I feel it should be easy to vote. I
have no problem showing my I D, I
get that,” Banks said. “I’m not
naive, I understand there are
players in the game who are really
trying to make it really tough for
certain groups of people to vote.”
But Banks said he would not be
deterred. “If I’ve got to stand in
line for 10 hours,” he said, “I’m
going to cast my vote.”Despite a smooth primary, Ga. voting advocates worry about fall
DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Voters at Israel Missionary Baptist Church polling site in Atlanta during Tuesday’s primary election.
Voting advocates worked hard on outreach and education and say they will continue to do so.Full effects of state law
may not be clear until
after 2024 electionWE BRING THE
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