Democrats pushed against GA no-excuse absentee voting

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In 2005, the year that Republicans gained control of state government after decades of Democratic domination, HB 244 was a 59-page bill that contained nearly 70 revisions of state election code, including two major changes: adding a photo ID requirement for in-person voting and allowing Georgians to vote by mail without an excuse, and without an ID.

At the time, Democrats and voting rights groups adamantly opposed both measures. Lawmakers compared the photo ID requirement to Jim Crow laws and warned that Georgia would have some of the country’s most restrictive voting procedures. The addition of no-excuse absentee voting did not reassure Democrats, either. In an eerie inversion of today’s positions, they argued that it would introduce a system ripe for abuse.

“By removing restrictions related to mailed absentee ballots, HB 244 opens a greater opportunity for fraud,” former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, then a Democratic state senator, wrote in an op-ed. “Skeptics might point out that absentee voters have historically voted for Republicans in higher numbers.”

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