Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office reported Tuesday that a federal district court has upheld provisions within Georgia’s Election Integrity Act (SB 202) following a challenge by activist groups.
District Court Judge JP Boule ruled in VoteAmerica v. Raffensperger that the law’s provisions, which include stopping outside groups from pre-filling voter information or flooding voters with duplicate absentee ballot applications, “reduce confusion, strengthen confidence and make elections more efficient,” according to Raffensperger’s office.
Plaintiffs in the case included VoteAmerica, the Voter Participation Center and the Center for Voter Registration. The non-profits filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in April 2021, claiming that the law violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The suit challenged three provisions within the bill, claiming that the disclaimer provision, prefilling provision and mailing list restriction violated the groups’ core political speech, which included encouraging participation in politics via absentee voting.
The ruling comes after the U.S. Department of Justice abandoned its lawsuit against SB 202 earlier this year.