Georgia’s election integrity laws could create ‘hovering threat’ for poll workers in 2024

Milton Kidd has been an election administrator in Georgia since 2012. 

But since the 2020 presidential election, he has felt the climate around his work shift. Some of it is because of increased threats and animosity from voters, but another part is related to new regulations that Kidd said have constricted his office’s resources and changed how it operates.

“We're paying lip service in this country that we value elections,” Kidd, director of elections and registration in Douglas County, Georgia, west of Atlanta, told USA TODAY. “But that's not being shown by the laws that are being passed.”

More than half of U.S. states have enacted laws since 2021 that could limit voter access and inhibit the ability of officials to administer elections, according to a new report published by the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election-related legislation nationwide.

At the national level, former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have floated legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting, which is already illegal in federal elections. Their proposal faces slim chances in the Democrat-led Senate.

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But other significant new rules are already in effect in major 2024 battleground states, including Georgia and North Carolina, that could help to decide the results of a close presidential election.

In Georgia, in particular, a series of election rules passed over the past three years threatens to overburden election officials and, in some cases, issue criminal penalties against them. New election measures passed by the Republican-led state Legislature in late March that are awaiting a signature from Gov. Brian Kemp could further hamper the way elections offices operate if enacted, experts say.

Liz Avore, lead author of the Voting Rights Lab report, argued that these laws take "steps toward almost treating election officials like they are suspects in a crime" and "treating election offices like they’re crime scenes." 

For the election workers with whom USA TODAY spoke, however, the main concern is that the heightened regulations may hinder the recruitment of poll workers for the 2024 election who play a vital role in elections administration.

Republican leaders in the state, including Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have defended the laws, arguing they bring enhanced security and provide clarity around laws for election officials.

Raffensperger said he didn't see an issue with poll worker recruitment in 2022 after some of the initial election laws were passed, and doesn't expect to see any in 2024. He also lauded Republican officials' work in recent elections.

"Because we had people with backbone stand up for Georgia's election administration and results, we are not seeing the issue of poll worker recruitment that is plaguing other states," Raffensperger said in a statement.  

Georgia election workers face felony threat

In recent years, Kidd said, one of his biggest work-related fears has been making a mistake on the job that could wind him up in prison. 

Georgia is among nine states that have enacted laws ramping up investigations into and prosecution of election crimes, according to the Voting Rights Lab report. 

A measure passed in the state’s sweeping 2021 election integrity law opened election workers up to felony prosecution if they issue an absentee ballot request form to a person who does not request one. Another passed in 2023 made it a felony, punishable by up to a year in prison, for officials to accept more than $500 in private funding for election administration.

Until the past few years, neither action was illegal. 

Election offices across the country, including those in Georgia, accepted grant money to supplement funding provided by their states in 2020. The extra money allowed them to hire more poll workers, increase educational outreach to voters and boost other capabilities. 

But false claims that private money influenced the 2020 election led Georgia and 26 other states to pass laws cracking down on the use of outside money.

In Georgia – a state that had a $16 billion budget surplus in 2023 – there have been no efforts to increase the budgets of election offices or provide alternative sources of funding as a result of the ban on private money. 

Meanwhile, the state has enacted measures that have changed the way elections are run and that in some circumstances may increase the workload of elections offices. 

These include laws clarifying that residents can challenge an unlimited number of voter registrations they believe are ineligible and cutting down the timeline for tabulating and reporting early votes, among others. 

Under the changes, Kidd argued, it’s not inconceivable that election workers could make those felony-level mistakes – especially during another possible runoff election when they’re juggling multiple tasks under tight deadlines.

“We're expected to pull out what will be the largest election in U.S. history and the runoff associated with it with less funding than we had for 2020,” Kidd said. 

“Because of all the changes you're rushing, you're most of the time working with inexperienced people,” he added. “So yes, you have the opportunity to make mistakes.”

Impact on poll worker recruitment 

Joseph Kirk, elections supervisor in Bartow County, Georgia, an area about an hour northwest of Atlanta, said he doesn’t believe the new laws criminalize election workers. 

Instead, he sees the changes as more about politics rather than election administration.

Concerns about politically motivated election law changes aren't new in Georgia.

In 2018, while serving as secretary of state, Kemp was accused of suppressing minority votes during his race for governor against Stacey Abrams. The Republican canceled 1.4 million voter registrations as Georgia's lead election administrator, including close to 700,000 in 2017, as part of what his office described as "voter roll maintenance." Several weeks before the election he'd go on to win, Kemp implemented a program that put 53,000 voter registrations - most of them of Black citizens - on hold.

But Kirk said he does sometimes worry that the more recently passed laws could affect his country's ability to recruit the workers they need to carry out the election. 

“There's more fear from poll workers, from temporary employees, about making mistakes rather than actual changes in law that are trying to increase the penalties for those mistakes,” Kirk said.

One law, enacted in 2022, gave the Georgia Bureau of Investigations authority to audit county election offices, investigate election crimes and subpoena documents. 

Voting rights advocates have suggested that law provides the governor, who appoints the head of the state Bureau of Investigations, with greater power to oversee elections. 

Avore, of the Voting Rights Lab, argued that the rule creates a “hovering threat” for election workers who may worry that they’ll subject their offices to investigation, and possibly lose their jobs, over discretionary decisions or administrative mistakes. 

Kirk said one of the keys to his success in running elections over the last two decades has been keeping a knowledgeable and dedicated workforce by encouraging the same temporary employees to come back year after year to help out. 

The threat of investigations has made that harder. Some workers have begun to retire, and Kirk said he believes it’s partially because laws have created an “atmosphere” of “animosity” that is dissuading people from wanting to return.

“We all make mistakes. We're human,” Kirk said. “Finding an administrative error shouldn't cast doubt on the results of an election.”

A compounding cycle 

Kidd, from Douglas County, similarly expressed fear that the new laws are discouraging people from applying to become temporary poll workers. From 2020 to 2022, he said, he had an almost 70% turnover rate for poll workers. He expects a similar rate after each election this year.

The high turnover could be, at least partially, related to the increased the increased complexity of the role, according to a recent report published by the Bipartisan Policy Center. The report found no correlation between high levels or harassment toward election officials and turnover rates but suggested that "laws adding burdens and liability to local election official roles" could play a role.

And Kidd argued that recruitment challenges in his county may be further compounded in 2024 by a Georgia law that cut the time frame for runoff elections in half.

The state requires a runoff election in races in which no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. The Legislature changed the date of the runoff in 2021 from nine weeks after the election to four weeks, citing concerns that the timeline was exhausting for candidates and voters.

The current RealClearPolitics average of polls in Georgia, which was calculated using polls published between early March and mid-April, shows neither Trump nor Biden reaching that 50% threshold. Trump holds 49.7% support and Biden 45.7%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

If there is a runoff, Kidd said, the four-week timeline could put election workers in a bind. 

“Having a four-week run for the November election means that election workers will be working over the holidays, including Thanksgiving, where we have a hard time recruiting poll workers because everyone is with their families,” he said. 

Because the state requires three weeks of early voting, the new time frame also means election offices will have only one week after this November's general election to count the results, reprogram the equipment, print new ballots, and send out absentee ballot application forms.

In a state known for close margins in its elections, particularly in presidential election years, that could wreak havoc on the system. 

“You haven't even finished the previous election before you are actively having to basically turn around and do it all over again in a matter of three days for what took you months to prepare for,” Kidd said.