Election Protection

This is OUR ‘government by the people’ – and we owe it to each other to make sure we all participate. We owe it to each other to check our voter registrations, to make our plans to vote, and to take our family and friends with us when we vote.

Our ‘government by the people’ relies on local elections workers. In 2020, more than 27,000 Georgians worked to ensure that our elections ran as smoothly as possible – and this week, Common Cause members across Georgia said “Thank You!”  

During yesterday’s chaos, it was very clear that some special or partisan interest wanted Georgia to have its own ‘Election Police’ force, just like Florida. So, now we have one – to the tune of almost $580,000 a year. That’s money that could and should be spent, instead, on things that would improve Georgians’ lives, like school lunches, housing assistance, and economic development programs that create good jobs.

When the Legislature takes up SB 89 on Monday, we hope that the Senate Ethics Committee’s reasoning will prevail over whatever special interests are driving these proposals.

The pending 2023 state budget still includes $579,936 for “four fulltime positions and operating expenses to investigate elections complaints” within the Georgia Bureau of Elections.

A rushed legislative process rarely makes for good public policy. And this bill is being rushed through the legislative process, just like last year’s SB 202 was.