Abstract
In the aftermath of Republicans’ stinging losses in 2020 and 2021, which contributed to relinquishing the presidency and U.S. Senate majority, respectively, Georgia’s GOP lawmakers passed comprehensive electoral reform in Senate Bill (SB) 202. In this Field Note, we outline SB 202’s major provisions, and then present results of a survey querying Georgia local election officials (LEOs) to assess how SB 202 affected administrative performance in the 2022 midterm elections. Unquestionably, SB 202’s raft of reforms greatly altered Georgia’s administrative apparatus, but it is anything but clear that these changes in the aggregate either improved or detracted from the system it replaced. Indeed, the most credible judgment rendered from LEOs, is that administrative performance is case-specific, and therefore highly contingent upon the reform of interest.
Just before this writing commenced, former President Trump was indicted along with 18 co-conspirators in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election in that state. On his 2 January 2021 phone call to Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump was recorded saying the following words, “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state” (Fuchs and Cameron 2023). This Field Note is not concerned with the debacle surrounding the 2020 presidential election in the Peach State, but it indirectly stems from this incident because in the aftermath of this contentious period, Georgia GOP legislators passed comprehensive election administration reform in Senate Bill (SB) 202.
Rather the focus of this study is on the more mundane and yet consequential question of whether the raft of changes in SB 202 improved upon or detracted from carrying out the democratic imperative of administering free and fair elections in the state of Georgia. To be sure, with only Republican lawmakers voting yes on SB 202 and only Democratic legislators voting no, these alterations to Georgia election administration have been viewed through a partisan lens (Bowler and Donovan 2016; Hood and McKee 2022, 2023). Nevertheless, irrespective of the partisan motivation behind the contents and passage of SB 202, there remains the nonpartisan question of how these statutory alterations to election administration affected local election officials’ (LEOs) ability to do their jobs. To answer this question, after the 2022 midterm election, we surveyed Georgia LEOs regarding performance-related issues pertaining to numerous provisions in SB 202.
This Field Note proceeds as follows. We begin with a brief summary of SB 202, including when it was passed, the context surrounding it, and the various provisions that we focus on. Next, we briefly discuss surveys of LEOs, home in on our specific survey of Georgia LEOs, briefly describe their duties, and then present descriptive data on their responses. Finally, we conclude with some admittedly cautious and perhaps even tentative pronouncements regarding the effectiveness of SB 202, when viewed in terms of administering elections.
Brief Background on SB 202 and Its Major Provisions
On March 25, 2021, Georgia Republicans’ SB 202 was enacted into law. SB 202 includes the word “confidence” nine times and specifically under Section 2(3), the language states: “The stress of the 2020 elections, with a dramatic increase in absentee-by-mail ballots and pandemic restrictions, demonstrated where there were opportunities to update existing processes to reduce the burden on election officials and boost voter confidence.” In a passage preceding the aforementioned one, SB 202 also mentions allegations of voter suppression in 2018, raised by Democrats and their gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams in her losing bid to Republican Brian Kemp. That was a close election that left Georgia Democrats questioning the fairness of the process (Hood and McKee 2019). In contrast, Biden’s victory in the Peach State one election cycle later, and President Trump calling into question the legitimacy of the outcome, dampened Georgia Republicans’ voter confidence (Hood and McKee 2024). Subsequently, Georgia’s Republican lawmakers saw comprehensive electoral reform in SB 202 as a means to bolster GOP confidence (Wickerstaff 2021), which it did (Hood and McKee 2024).
Stepping away from the partisan polarization that ensued from a wholly Republican-led electoral reform (Hood and McKee 2022, 2023), 1 we now turn to its host of provisions that Georgia LEOs were tasked with implementing for the 2022 midterm election. SB 202 is a 98-page omnibus election reform measure. While the law touches myriad aspects of Georgia’s election code, in this study we concentrate on several of the more salient changes in the statute related to how elections are administered by county election officials. Specifically, we present a description of these changes to elucidate the responsibilities and tasks faced by LEOs during the 2022 election cycle (a summary of these changes is provided in Table 1 below). We parcel our discussion of SB 202 into the following domains: absentee-by-mail ballot reforms; early in-person voting reforms; runoff election reform; and vote counting reforms.
Major Administrative Changes in SB 202.
Absentee-by-Mail Ballot Reforms
SB 202 contained a number of provisions involving absentee-by-mail (ABM) voting. Prior to SB 202 Georgia had relied on signature matching to verify absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots. SB 202 required voters to record their driver’s license or state ID number on their application and ballot container envelope for verification purposes along with one’s date of birth. 2 SB 202 also moved the deadline to request an absentee ballot from 180 to 4 days before the election, to a window of 78 to 11 days prior to Election Day. Also, absentee ballot drop boxes were used in Georgia for the first time in 2020. These drop boxes, however, were not authorized by the state’s election code but rather authorized by the Secretary of State under emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the number of drop boxes, locations, and hours were set by county LEOs. SB 202 mandates at least one drop box per county with use limited to early in-person voting hours and locations limited to county election offices or early voting sites. 3 Larger counties can employ additional drop boxes up to the lesser of 1 per 100,000 active registrants or 1 per early in-person voting site.
Early In-Person Voting Reforms
Early in-person voting was another aspect of electoral reform altered by SB 202. For years, Georgia already had a robust early voting window amounting to 17 days over a three-week period, including some weekend days. Prior to SB 202 one Saturday of early voting was mandated with one Sunday optional. SB 202 mandates early voting over two Saturdays with up to two Sundays as optional. SB 202 also mandates early voting occur from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and grants counties the ability to extend hours from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Previously, the election code only required early voting occur during the business hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Runoff Election Reform
We also examine a change to the timing of runoff elections. Georgia is one of two states that require candidates to attain a majority of the vote in general elections in order to win. 4 If no candidate obtains a majority of the votes cast, then there is a runoff between the top two candidates. Before SB 202, the window between the general election and a runoff election was nine weeks. 5 SB 202 shortened this interlude between the general and runoff elections to just four weeks (28 days).
Vote Counting Reforms
One issue that materialized during the aftermath of the 2020 election was an inability for Georgia to come to a vote tally in a timely manner. Vote tabulations in some counties continued into the Monday following Election Day (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2020). SB 202 included measures to expedite the final count. For instance, now counties could begin tabulating absentee ballots beginning at 7:00 a.m. on Election Day, whereas previously, vote tabulation was not permitted to begin until the close of polls on Election Day (7:00 p.m.). 6 This change helped counties comply with another SB 202 requirement; that vote tabulation must proceed uninterrupted until an initial tally is reached. Finally, the tally for absentee ballots must be completed by 5:00 p.m. the day after the election. 7
Surveying Local Election Officials
Surveys of LEOs are not plentiful, but there are some informing us of their opinions toward election administration. 8 For instance, in 2018 Adona et al. (2019, 4) conducted a nationally representative survey of LEOs to gauge their “opinions about election administration, access, integrity, and reform.” Additionally, Adona et al. (2019) provided a detailed demographic profile of LEOs and showed how election administration performance was consistently linked to the size of a political jurisdiction. Regarding the size issue, resources were unsurprisingly scarcer in smaller localities where LEOs are stretched thin, having to perform more tasks often unrelated to election administration. Adona et al. (2019) referred to previous reports in 2008 and 2011, conducted by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which focused on LEOs’ views of election reform, particularly as related to the major changes brought about by HAVA in 2002 (see also Moynihan and Silva 2008). 9 The evidence generally suggests that election administration is becoming more efficient and LEOs are increasingly finding themselves in the role of educating the public on how to navigate the voting process.
More recently, Manion et al. (2022) compared the demographic profiles and opinions of LEOs vis-à-vis the mass public. These researchers found some notable demographic differences between LEOs and the broader electorate (e.g., reaffirming the evidence from Adona et al. 2019, LEOs are older, whiter, more educated, and more female). Regarding election issues, Manion et al. (2022) note that LEOs have greater faith in election integrity (less likely to believe there is much voter fraud), and “are more likely to endorse voters having ‘more options’, to prioritize security over access, to describe voting as a choice not a duty, and to assign the primary responsibility of registration to the citizen rather than the government.” Finally, Manion et al. (2022) discovered that LEOs are typically more opposed to implementing election reforms that place administrative burdens upon them, especially in jurisdictions with fewer resources.
Finally, Edlin and Norden (2023) recently summarized an April 2023 Brennan Center survey of LEOs (Currie et al. 2023), citing increases in LEO turnover amid a rise in threats, abuse, harassment, and political interference in the wake of the 2020 election. Most LEOs saw a need for greater funding and resources to protect their physical security in the places where they work and also to secure the election apparatus from cyber threats. Nevertheless, Edlin and Norden (2023) conclude that, “[b]y and large, the 2022 election was a success for election administration. There was limited violence, courts pushed back on efforts to refuse to certify elections, and election deniers lost key governor and secretary of state contests.”
To be sure, these previous surveys of LEOs are informative, both with respect to their demographic profiles and opinions on election administration. However, we are not concerned with the personal characteristics of LEOs and given the narrow scope of comprehensive electoral reform impinging on one state, the kinds of questions asked of LEOs in national surveys are less relevant to the questions we seek answers to. Additionally, in this study we are not trying to advance a theory of election administration, but instead offering evidence as to whether comprehensive electoral reform made administering elections in Georgia more or less difficult. Hence, with respect to the administrative changes brought about by SB 202, we tailored a survey for LEOs in Georgia’s 159 counties.
Employing a mixed-mode approach, we distributed both paper and electronic versions of the survey beginning on 15 February 2023, and ending on 2 August 2023. For non-responding counties, multiple contacts were made using both phone and e-mail. Overall, we received valid responses from LEOs in 115 counties (one completed survey per county), producing a 72.3% response rate. Counties that returned a survey are shaded gray in Figure 1. As shown in the figure, responses were geographically distributed from across Georgia. Further, as detailed in Table 2, counties in our sample closely resemble the state’s 159 counties as a whole on a wide variety of demographic, economic, political, and voting-related factors. This fact should give us some degree of confidence that the inferences concerning SB 202 drawn from our sample counties comport with statewide opinion among Georgia LEOs.
Georgia LEOs in counties participating in the survey (in gray).
Mean Comparisons Between Sample and All Counties.
Source: 2022 American Community Survey, U.S. Census; Georgia Secretary of State.
Table 3 provides another comparison between the distribution of our sample counties and all Georgia counties, according to the number of registered voters. There is a tremendous amount of variation on this variable, ranging from 1,227 registrants in Taliaferro County to 752,646 in Fulton County. As noted in the table, the distribution of counties responding to our survey by registration size closely reflects the overall distribution in Georgia’s 159 counties. Our sample of counties is slightly underrepresented in the lowest and highest registration categories and slightly overrepresented in the two mid-range registration categories.
Number of Registrants.
Note: Entries are column percentages with frequencies in brackets.
LEOs in the Georgia Context
Elections in Georgia are overseen by the Secretary of State, but fully conducted at the county-level by local election officials. LEOs are charged with a wide variety of duties including hiring and training poll workers; registering citizens to vote; transmitting, receiving, and verifying absentee-by-mail ballots; conducting early in-person and election-day precinct voting; and tabulating and reporting vote counts to the state. Within the Georgia election regime, there is variance in the selection and partisan status of LEOs. In the smallest Georgia counties, probate judges (elected in partisan contests) are officially charged with overseeing election administration and they often hire a staff member to perform election-related duties. In larger Georgia counties, it is typically the case that a nonpartisan election superintendent is appointed to administer the voting apparatus. The manner in which an election superintendent is appointed can also vary. For example, being selected by the Board of Elections for the county is one common method. Despite an indirect connection to politics, Georgia LEOs typically demonstrate a nonpartisan approach toward the administration of elections in their respective counties.
Georgia LEO Opinions on Administering SB 202
We report Georgia LEOs’ opinions on the four components of SB 202 summarized previously and documented in Table 1: absentee-by-mail ballot reforms; early in-person voting reforms; runoff election reform; and vote counting reforms. But first, we quickly note overall impressions of SB 202 and whether LEOs thought they received adequate training to administer these various changes. Capturing the broader picture of SB 202, we asked LEOs, “On balance, do you think SB 202—improved the administration of elections in your county; did not improve the administration of elections in your county; made no difference one way or the other; or don’t know/prefer not to answer?”
Opinions were split on whether SB 202 improved Georgia’s election administration, with 26% of LEOs responding in the affirmative, 29% responding negatively, 13% indicating it made no difference one way or the other, and a third (32%) preferring not to answer or not having an opinion. As mentioned, many LEOs in Georgia have viewed, and continue to view, their role in the administration of elections as being nonpartisan in nature. Thus, this viewpoint likely accounts for the high percentage of Don’t know responses regarding this polarizing election law.
By comparison, regarding the adequacy of training necessary to carry out SB 202’s directives, there is some degree of consensus. For instance, when asked if their local jurisdiction received adequate training from state authorities regarding the implementation of SB 202, two-thirds (67%) of LEOs strongly or somewhat agreed that this was the case, compared with 15% who disagreed (strongly or somewhat), and 18% responding they did not know or preferred not to answer.
Absentee-by-Mail Ballot Reforms
Table 4 summarizes responses to questions on absentee-by-mail balloting reforms. Asked about specific provisions of SB 202, LEOs were more likely to report a substantive response as opposed to simply defaulting to the Don’t know option. First, we asked LEOs their opinion on the switch to verifying absentee ballot applications using a driver’s license or state ID number. Almost half (49%) of LEOs indicated this change made the verification process faster, while 30% stated it resulted in the same length of time, and only 9% said the process was slower. On this same ABM provision, 34% of LEOs responded that the change resulted in fewer absentee ballot applications being rejected, while 46% responded that this change did not result in fewer initial rejections. 10 It should be noted that there are other reasons why an ABM application might be rejected outside of failure to correctly record one’s driver’s license or state ID number. 11
Georgia LEO Opinions on Absentee-by-Mail Ballot Reforms.
Similarly mixed responses were given to two questions asking about the time required to verify the actual absentee ballot itself. A 46% plurality of LEOs thought the law made this process faster, whereas 10% replied that this alteration made verification slower. Another third (32%) of LEOs indicated the processing rate was the same as that using signature verification. In terms of initial rejections of absentee ballots, 32% of LEOs believed the change in verification procedure resulted in fewer initial rejections of absentee ballots in the 2022 general election. Conversely, 46% of LEOs indicated this provision did not lead to fewer absentee ballots needing to be cured.
As mentioned, SB 202 shortens the window for requesting an ABM ballot from 4 to 11 days prior to Election Day. The 12-day cushion (including Election Day) imposed by SB 202 not only increases the time for a voter to send and return an absentee ballot, but it also allows additional time to cure issues that might arise. Further, this window reduces the administrative effort to address this aspect of absentee balloting as the election approaches. When queried on this provision, just under half (48%) of LEOs indicated that shortening the ABM deadline made administering the 2022 election less difficult. Another 24% of LEOs said it made no difference one way or the other, and 17% responded that it made administering the election more difficult. Clearly, this aspect of SB 202 appears to have alleviated absentee-related administrative issues in a considerable number of jurisdictions.
Lastly, SB 202 mandated limited deployment of ABM drop boxes. Asked about this provision, 33% of county LEOs responded that ABM drop boxes made administrating the election more difficult; 24% said it made this aspect of the voting process less difficult; and another 37% of LEOs gave a neutral answer on this issue. Interestingly, in the comments section of the survey a number of LEOs questioned the raison d'etre for drop boxes under the SB 202 guidelines. Several LEOs pointed out that making drop boxes located in county election offices accessible during business hours was little different from a voter handing a clerk their absentee ballot and that, further, the clerk could quickly check the container envelope for any deficiencies. Most of these negative comments came from LEOs in smaller counties who viewed the servicing of drop boxes under these conditions as an added and unnecessary administrative burden.
Early In-Person Voting Reforms
There were two SB 202 provisions related to early in-person voting (see Table 1). The first, in addition to mandating a second Saturday also allowed for the addition of up to two Sundays. Table 5 reports that 39% of LEOs thought the additional weekend early voting days made administering the election more difficult; 4% less difficult; and 39% thought it made no difference one way or the other. Another 11% indicated that their county did not make use of these optional weekend days. In open-ended comments, a number of LEOs indicated that, especially for smaller counties, adding another weekend to the early voting period was an administrative and financial burden. Particularly for lower turnout elections, additional weekend early voting days are not necessary because they are utilized by relatively few voters.
Georgia LEO Opinions on Early In-Person Voting Reforms.
SB 202 also allowed counties to increase early voting hours outside of those mandated from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. A quarter of LEOs did not make use of these optional early voting hours and almost half (46%) reported the additional hours made no difference one way or the other in terms of administering the election. Eleven percent reported this provision increased administrative difficulty while another 11% thought it actually made administration less difficult.
With respect to early in-person voting, the aim of SB 202 appears to be increasing voter access by expanding opportunities. Voter access should, however, be viewed against the backdrop of administrative effort and costs. Although a number of provisions related to early in-person voting are optional, LEOs may nevertheless feel compelled to implement such measures. Georgia has 17 mandated early voting days across a three-week period. Additional hours and weekend days for early in-person voting reflect an instance where a one-size-fits-all approach is not necessarily practical. Early in-person voting is extremely popular in the Peach State, but the demands on a large metro-Atlanta county are substantially different from a rural Georgia county. In sum, these early in-person voting reforms entail a tradeoff between voter access and administrative effort.
Runoff Election Reform
By far, the most one-sidedly negative reaction of LEOs to an SB 202 provision was shortening the time period between the general election and a runoff contest, from nine weeks to four. Almost three-quarters (73%) of LEOs stated that this change made administering elections more difficult, another 15% of LEOs thought it made no difference one way or the other, and only 5% responded that the change made election administration less difficult. Obviously, from the vantage of Georgia LEOs, this SB 202 electoral reform was generally not considered a welcome change.
Vote Counting Reforms
The last set of SB 202 provisions we queried LEOs on, involved the vote counting process (see Table 6). SB 202 hastened vote tabulation, especially for ballots cast using a non-precinct method (ABM or early in-person). Counties can begin processing and scanning absentee ballots on the third Monday prior to Election Day. Although this provision predated SB 202, we asked LEOs if they engaged in this activity with the idea that early processing and scanning coupled with the SB 202 reform of early tabulation could significantly speed up the vote counting process. Almost three-fifths (58%) of LEOs indicated they engaged in this process. Four out of 10 (39%) LEOs also stated they began tabulation of absentee ballots before the close of polls on Election Day. 12 More than a quarter (27%) of LEOs engaged in both of these processes. When queried, fully 71% of LEOs believed the ability to scan and tabulate absentee ballots prior to 7:00 p.m. on Election Day made administering the election less difficult. Another 22% thought it made no difference one way or the other and no LEOs reported that this change made administration more difficult.
Georgia LEO Opinions on Vote Counting Reforms.
Concluding Thoughts
Without question, Georgia’s battleground status in 2020, which yielded a Democratic presidential victory for the first time in nearly three decades, sent the state’s ruling GOP into motion to counter the unwelcome and unanticipated Democratic competition. Two Democratic Senate runoff wins followed in early January 2021, relinquishing GOP majority control since Republicans took over in 2014. Then, in late March 2021, Georgia Republican lawmakers enacted comprehensive electoral reform. To be sure, this action enhanced rank-and-file Republican voters’ confidence, but not that of their Democratic counterparts who saw it as a partisan powerplay (Hood and McKee 2024). Indeed, President Biden called SB 202 “Jim Crow 2.0” and Major League Baseball even moved their scheduled All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver. Further, for several of the provisions we considered in this note, Democratic and Republican voters exhibited wide and significant opinion polarization (Hood and McKee 2023).
But instead of offering additional evidence of the deep political rift over SB 202, we have sought answers to another question that is bereft of partisan rancor: how do Georgia local election officials view their administrative performance in response to a multitude of changes to election law? Overall, and with respect to four principal areas where major reforms were implemented under SB 202, it is difficult to come away with any other conclusion than the record of performance is both nuanced and unquestionably mixed. In fact, not only were LEOs split on the overall effectiveness of SB 202, but a plurality opted for the Don’t know response. This said, two-thirds of LEOs believed they received adequate training to carry out SB 202’s directives.
In the four primary domains of election reforms (ABM ballot reforms; early-in person voting reforms; runoff election reform; and vote counting reforms), perceptions of administrative performance are essentially case-specific. Regarding ABM reforms, it appears that shifting from signature verification to the use of a driver’s license or state ID number, resulted in greater efficiencies in processing absentee applications and ballots. However, the ABM drop box provision seemed an unnecessary and superfluous burden, and particularly for LEOs residing in small-town/rural counties where boxes are placed inside of county election offices. 13 With a history of early in-person voting occurring within an expansive window, many LEOs did not see a need to add more days and hours for this voting method, even if it may have been welcomed by voters. The runoff election reform is perhaps the most clearcut in terms of a super-majority position (73%) that shortening the time from nine weeks to four, made election administration more difficult. In contrast, measures to expedite vote counting generally appeared to foster that purpose. In fact, not one LEO thought “provisions for early scanning and tabulation of absentee ballots” made election administration more difficult.
SB 202 was an extensive electoral reform, enacted in response to a dispirited post-2020 Georgia Republican electorate. However, despite the partisan division accompanying passage of SB 202, it is doubtful that the GOP-led and crafted legislation actually electorally benefited Republicans. Additionally, it is even more complicated to render a verdict as to whether SB 202 moved election administration forward or set it back; it simply depends on the specific reform of interest. At least from the vantage of LEOs, whom we queried with nonpartisan questions regarding administrative performance, perhaps the most accurate proclamation is that SB 202 greatly changed election laws in the Peach State, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and sometimes made little difference versus the administrative apparatus it replaced. Our contribution is rare in this line of research and hence we hope that other scholars can conduct similar studies to provide us with additional insight on election administrators’ opinions toward reforms that directly impact how they perform their jobs.
Footnotes
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by a generous grant from the Election Trust Initiative as administered by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.
