Georgia at the Intersections: Voting Rights in Georgia

In a new series called Georgia 2022: At the Intersections, The Takeaway will look at Georgia throughout the year, all with the goal of understanding how politics, culture, legacy and the future of Georgia are shaping our nation.

After Georgia sent two Democratic senators to Washington and handed the states electoral college votes to Joe Biden, the Republican-controlled legislature in Georgia passed restrictive voting legislation that limits mail ballot drop boxes, adds strict new ID requirements for mail ballots, and gives voters less time to request mail-in ballots.

A recent report by Mother Jones shows that voting restrictions have already made it harder for Georgia voters to cast a ballot. During municipal elections in November 2021, Mother Jones found that Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail-in ballot applications rejected than the year before. Georgians who successfully obtained mail ballots were also twice as likely to have those ballots rejected once they were submitted compared to the previous year.

The Takeaway spoke with Ari Berman, senior reporter at Mother Jones covering voting right, and the author of “Give us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.”