Systematic Disenfranchisement in Georgia: Legal Maneuvering and the Federal Government's Retreat
by Indumini Randeny
In the years since the 2020 election, Georgia has become ground zero for a troubling experiment in voter suppression disguised as election reform. Under the banner of “election integrity,” the state has passed legislation and implemented administrative changes that disproportionately burden voters of color, low-income individuals, and immigrants. These measures are not just about paperwork or procedure—they’re about power. And increasingly, that power is being manipulated to limit access to the ballot in ways that should alarm anyone who values representative democracy.
A centerpiece of this shift was the passage of Senate Bill 202, a sweeping law enacted in 2021 that restricted mail-in voting, limited ballot drop boxes, and made it illegal to give food or water to voters waiting in line. It also imposed new ID requirements that, in practice, have been especially burdensome for older voters, naturalized citizens, and those living in poverty. These hurdles are more than inconvenient—they are discriminatory. For communities like Georgia’s growing Asian American population, language barriers and complicated ID requirements create an exclusionary system that doesn’t reflect the spirit—or letter—of the Voting Rights Act.
The law’s chilling effect is well-documented. Limited access to translation services and stringent ID rules have a distinct impact among the elderly immigrants and first-time voters. A comparison between 2022 and 2024 census data on voting and registration, inter alia, by race shows that registration and voting among Asians have dropped by more than half from 2022 to 2024. We’ve seen stagnation—or even declines—in participation in communities that face these barriers. That should trouble every American who believes in equal voice at the ballot box.
Unfortunately, SB 202 is not the only threat. In 2024, Georgia passed Senate Bill 189, which gave private citizens the power to challenge an unlimited number of voter registrations. Since then, over 63,000 challenges have been filed, many in counties with high populations of voters of color. The law doesn’t require challengers to present concrete evidence—just suspicion. In effect, it deputizes politically motivated actors to harass voters. This kind of policy flies in the face of due process and raises serious red flags under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The legal consensus has long held that voter purges based on faulty data and without meaningful safeguards violate federal law. But what’s happening in Georgia reflects a broader national trend—one that’s increasingly being ignored or, worse, enabled by the federal government.
In March 2025, the Department of Justice quietly withdrew from its lawsuit challenging SB 202. Initially, the DOJ had claimed that Georgia’s law was intentionally discriminatory—a position backed by years of civil rights precedent. But its recent rationale for dropping the suit? Higher turnout among Black voters in subsequent elections. That argument is both disingenuous and legally flawed. As courts have made clear, high turnout does not mean there’s no discrimination. Voters can—and often do—overcome barriers, but that doesn’t make those barriers legal or just.
More disturbing is that Georgia is not the only place where the DOJ has backed off. The Department has also withdrawn from lawsuits in Arizona over strict voter registration rules, and in Texas over racially gerrymandered redistricting maps. Former DOJ attorneys and civil rights groups have publicly voiced concern that this pattern signals a quiet, dangerous shift away from enforcing the core protections of the Voting Rights Act. This retreat risks normalizing suppression tactics that should never be acceptable in a democratic society.
Adding to this erosion, Georgia is now considering pulling out of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a national bipartisan program that helps states keep voter rolls accurate. Ironically, this comes from the same officials who claim to be worried about fraud. Without ERIC, Georgia’s rolls are more likely to be inaccurate, not less—and that means more wrongful purges, more voter confusion, and more disenfranchisement. Warnings against exiting the program are hard to miss.
So where is Congress in all this? Stalled. The Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act—both of which would have restored critical protections gutted by the Supreme Court—remain stuck. Without federal standards, states like Georgia can continue to pass laws that erode voting rights with little fear of consequence. And with the DOJ stepping back, the legal tools we once relied on to stop these abuses are gathering dust. By failing to capitalize on the post-2020 momentum for progressive reform, lawmakers have left a gaping vacuum now being filled by the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act—a bill passed in the House on April 10, 2025, that would require all voters to present documentary proof of citizenship (such as a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers) when registering to vote or updating their registration.
Election experts and civil rights advocates have issued stark warnings that the SAVE Act would devastate modern voter registration systems and disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans—particularly women, seniors, and lower-income individuals who are less likely to have easy access to original documents. The bill also fails to provide any federal funding to support states in implementing these burdensome requirements.
Even if the SAVE Act fails in the Senate, its long-term impact is already being felt. In Texas, lawmakers are fast-tracking SB 16, a bill that would force voters to show proof of citizenship to remain on the rolls—potentially affecting over half a million voters. Advocates warn this could especially impact married women whose names have changed, low-income individuals, and rural voters with limited document access. In Arizona, implementation of similar documentation rules has already led to confusion and voter disenfranchisement. Reports detail how inconsistent application by county officials has resulted in eligible voters being shifted to provisional ballots—or excluded entirely—due to missing or misunderstood paperwork.
Let’s be clear: what we’re seeing in Georgia is not just a series of bad laws—it’s a deliberate strategy to reshape the electorate and roll back hard-won civil rights. Voters are facing death by a thousand cuts: ID requirements here, voter roll challenges there, fewer early voting days, fewer ballot boxes, and less federal oversight to stop it all.
Communities like Georgia’s Asian American population—many of whom are first-time voters, naturalized citizens, or have limited English proficiency—are being pushed to the margins of the electorate. We see similar effects among Black, Latino, and Native American voters. Our recent report documents how these laws impact their voter access and the overall quality of being an active member of our democracy. The result is a voting system that serves the powerful and silences the vulnerable.
If we’re serious about preserving democracy, it is non-negotiable to advocate for a truly equal voting system that doesn’t sever the powerful and silences the vulnerable. Because the ‘right’ to vote is not a partisan issue. It is a constitutional one. Voting is not a privilege for the few—it is a right for all. And it’s a right worth fighting for.
