HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-02-23-Agenda MeetingSpecial Called Meeting Virtual/Teleconference- 2/23/2021- 11:00 AM
1. LEGAL MEETING
A. Pending and potential litigation
B. Real estate
C. Personnel
Attachments
2. Motion to approve execution by the Mayor of the affidavit of
compliance with Georgia's Open Meeting Act.Attachments
3. Discuss a plan to allow outside events on city property if they
meet the CDC guideline plan they have established for outside
events. (Deferred from the February 16, 2021 Commission
Meeting; requested by Commissioner Sean Frantom)
Attachments
4. Approval of a resolution being drafted and brought before the
Commission for a vote on 2/24, in opposition to Georgia senate
bills 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, and other bills aimed at restricting
methods available to Augusta residents to exercise their right to
vote or cause undue financial burden on voters. (Deferred from
the February 16, 2021 Commission Meeting; requested by
Mayor Hardie Davis,, Jr.)
Attachments
www.augustaga.gov
Legal Administration Committee Meeting
2/23/2021 11:00 AM
Legal Meeting
Department:
Presenter:
Caption:LEGAL MEETING
A. Pending and potential litigation
B. Real estate
C. Personnel
Background:
Analysis:
Financial Impact:
Alternatives:
Recommendation:
Funds are
Available in the
Following
Accounts:
REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY:
Cover Memo
Item # 1
Legal Administration Committee Meeting
2/23/2021 11:00 AM
Legal Meeting Affidavit
Department:
Presenter:
Caption:Motion to approve execution by the Mayor of the affidavit of
compliance with Georgia's Open Meeting Act.
Background:
Analysis:
Financial Impact:
Alternatives:
Recommendation:
Funds are
Available in the
Following
Accounts:
REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY:
Cover Memo
Item # 2
Legal Administration Committee Meeting
2/23/2021 11:00 AM
allow outside events on city property if they meet the CDC guideline
Department:
Presenter:Commissioner Sean Frantom
Caption:Discuss a plan to allow outside events on city property if they
meet the CDC guideline plan they have established for outside
events. (Deferred from the February 16, 2021 Commission
Meeting; requested by Commissioner Sean Frantom)
Background:
Analysis:
Financial Impact:
Alternatives:
Recommendation:
Funds are
Available in the
Following
Accounts:
REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY:
Cover Memo
Item # 3
Legal Administration Committee Meeting
2/23/2021 11:00 AM
Georgia Senate Bills Voting
Department:Mayor's Office
Presenter:Mayor Hardie Davis, Jr.
Caption:Approval of a resolution being drafted and brought before the
Commission for a vote on 2/24, in opposition to Georgia senate
bills 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, and other bills aimed at restricting
methods available to Augusta residents to exercise their right to
vote or cause undue financial burden on voters. (Deferred from
the February 16, 2021 Commission Meeting; requested by
Mayor Hardie Davis,, Jr.)
Background:
Analysis:
Financial Impact:
Alternatives:
Recommendation:
Funds are
Available in the
Following
Accounts:
REVIEWED AND APPROVED BY:
Cover Memo
Item # 4
N EWS (/N EWS)| POLI T IC S (/NEWS/A RT ICL ES /P O LITICS)
Georgia Senate Republicans Unveil Bills To Make Voting
Harder
February 2, 2021 9:31 AM
By:Stephen Fowler (/author/stephen-fowler)
Poll Worker in Bibb Co. looks over an absentee ballot
Credit: Grant Blankenship/GPB News
After a failed attempt by some Republicans to overturn Georgia's thrice-counted certified election results that gave President
Joe Biden a victory, GOP lawmakers in the state Senate have filed a barrage of bills that would add more barriers to the ballot
box for many voters.
If all of the proposals announced by Senate Republican leadership Monday became law, future elections would look
dramatically different.
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Only a small subset of Georgians would be eligible to vote absentee by mail, and those that do qualify would have to submit
some sort of photo ID with their application either online or on paper. They would not be allowed to get an application from
outside groups, and could only return ballots through the mail or deliver in person to the county elections office. If someone
moves to Georgia, or moves within the state, they would have to remember to opt in to having the Department of Driver
Services update their voter registration, and if they relocate to Georgia after a November general election they could not
participate in the runoff.
The 2020 election cycle overwhelmed county elections officials with record turnout, an avalanche of absentee ballots and
rampant misinformation and distrust of the election system pushed by many Republicans, and in the weeks following the
November election both House and Senate lawmakers met to investigate alleged problems and vowed to change the rules after
Democrats flipped the state.
On Monday, eight bills with varying degrees of support and controversy were filed.
One bill with 26 cosponsors, SB 67 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59216), would require Georgians that are not
military or overseas voters to include either their driver's license or state ID number on the absentee application or include a
photocopy of an acceptable voter ID
(https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/georgia_voter_identification_requirements2) you would need to show
to vote in person. Currently, the state's new online absentee application portal
(https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/08/28/heres-how-request-georgia-absentee-ballot-using-the-online-
portal) requires a driver's license or state ID number, and this bill would authorize that portal to exist beyond the State
Election Board's emergency rule.
Sens. Jeff Mullis, Steve Gooch, Marty Harbin, Lee Anderson, Sheila McNeill, Tyler Harper, Lindsey Tippins, Lee Anderson and
Bruce Thompson are cosponsors of the bill who also signed onto Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's failed lawsuit
(https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/01/12/battleground-ballot-box-democrats-flip-senate-republicans-subvert-
democracy) in the Supreme Court riddled with lies and inaccuracies that sought to invalidate Georgia's votes in the
presidential election.
SB 68 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59219) would ban the use of secure 24/7 monitored drop boxes as a
method of returning absentee ballots. State elections officials implemented the additional return option amidst the coronavirus
pandemic that forced many counties to operate fewer polling places with fewer workers and fewer machines. Of the 12
cosponsors, Sens. Mullis, Gooch, Harper, Thompson, Matt Brass and Brandon Beach each spent the past few months making
baseless claims of voter fraud with Georgia's elections.
SB 69 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59221) would get rid of automatic voter registration, also known as the
"Motor Voter Law," that updates or creates a voter registration application any time someone interacts with the Department of
Driver Services. Currently, voters would have to opt out of updating their registration information. Secretary of State Brad
Raffensperger's office has frequently touted Georgia's automatic voter registration, noting last fall
(https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/georgia_easy_voter_registration_options_break_new_records) that
more than five million of the state's 7.7 million voters were registered through DDS. Mullis, Gooch, McNeill, Beach, Harper and
Thompson are among the bill's 10 cosponsors.
SB 70 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59220) would prohibit voters who participated in a November statewide
general election outside of Georgia from being eligible to vote in any Georgia runoff for U.S. House or Senate, after the Jan. 5
dual Senate runoff stoked internet fears and rumors among both parties that out-of-state voters would flood Georgia and
influence the outcome. A Republican Florida attorney is under investigation for allegedly attempting to illegally register to vote
in the Senate runoff. Raffensperger's office reminded voters
(https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/secretary_raffensperger_warning_moving_to_georgia_temporarily_in
that by law "it is a felony to register to vote in Georgia if you are not a resident of Georgia with no intention of leaving and is
punishable by up to 10 years in jail and a $100,000 fine." The 11 cosponsors include Mullis, Gooch, McNeill, Beach, Harper and
Thompson.
Attachment number 1 \nPage 2 of 4
Item # 4
SB 71 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59224) would eliminate no-excuse absentee by mail voting, instead
limiting it to those who are disabled, "required to be absent" from their precinct, work in elections, have a religious reason or
are 75 or older. Anyone would still be able to take advantage of the three-week in-person early voting period. Many
Republicans, from President Trump down to state lawmakers, claimed without evidence that there was widespread fraud in the
mail-in ballot portion of the state's 2020 election. A record 1.3 million Georgians voted by mail ahead of the November contest
because of the pandemic and tightly contested races. No-excuse absentee voting was created by Republicans, and almost
exclusively used by Republican voters until the 2018 election cycle that saw Democrat Stacey Abrams narrowly lose to Gov.
Brian Kemp. More than 450,000 absentee-by-mail votes in the November election were for Donald Trump. Six of the bill's
nine cosponsors are Mullis, McNeill, Beach, Brass, Harper and Thompson.
SB 72 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59222) would require county elections officials to receive monthly updates
about residents who have died and determine if they need to be removed from the voter rolls. Several social media rumors and
viral posts allege dead people cast their ballots, and in large enough numbers to change the results. Specific examples were
debunked in the days after the election, from a woman who was very much alive to people with similar names being mistaken
for deceased people. State law already requires the Secretary of State's office to receive monthly updates of deaths and remove
deceased voters, but this would push those requirements down to the county level. Georgia is also a member of the Electronic
Registration Information Center, or ERIC, that enables states to share data on voter registrations to track people who have
moved out of state, died or otherwise have duplicate registrations. Of the 11 cosponsors, Mullis, Gooch, McNeill, Beach, Harper
and Thompson earlier put their names on a suit that falsely claimed more than 2,400 unregistered voters cast ballots in the
November election.
SB 73 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59223) would only allow the Secretary of State's office, county elections
officials, candidates or candidate campaign committees to send out paper absentee ballot applications to voters, prohibiting
third-party and nonprofit groups from sending mailers. Republican lawmakers in the House last year briefly flirted with
prohibiting "unsolicited absentee applications" (https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/06/24/bill-would-ban-
elections-officials-mailing-georgians-absentee-applications) from any source after Secretary of State Raffensperger
sent applications to 6.9 million active voters (https://www.gpbnews.org/post/georgia-will-mail-active-voters-
absentee-ballot-request-form-may-primary)ahead of last year's mid-pandemic primary. Currently, both Democratic and
Republican-aligned groups can and do send out absentee applications to voters, so long as the form contains the same
information as the state's official form. Some voters and lawmakers conflated applications with actual ballots, leading to claims
of unsolicited absentee ballots and mistaken allegations of fraud. Of the 13 cosponsors, Mullis, Gooch, McNeill, Beach, Brass,
Harper and Thompson were among a group that made evidence-free claims that fraud permeated the state's absentee voting
process.
SB 74 (https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/59225) would expand access for partisan poll watchers to view the vote
counting process, allowing elections officials to restrict what poll watchers can see or do but directing them to be "as minimal as
possible." Republicans complained about access to tabulation in the November election, with the most notable grievance
arguing that Fulton County illegally counted votes at State Farm Arena because GOP watchers were "sent home" and votes kept
being counted. However, state and county officials said no poll watchers were instructed to leave, no ballots were counted in
secret and nothing illegal was done in that process. In several other cases, the state Republican party complained about rules
limiting the number of designated observers during the risk-limiting audit process and machine recount of the presidential
race. Mullis, Gooch, McNeill, Beach, Brass, Harper and Thompson are among the 13 cosponsors.
Another bill, SB 29, is a more extreme version of SB 67 and would require photocopies of voter ID submitted with both the
application and with the actual absentee ballot. That measure was filed by freshman Republican Sen. Jason Anavitarte of Dallas
and has no other cosponsors.
Many of these proposals, if passed through the legislature and signed into law, would likely be challenged in the courts, and
Democrats and voting rights groups have quickly objected to the bills.
"This unhinged set of voter suppression bills from a radical Senate Republican leadership appears intended to appease
conspiracy theorists like those who stormed the Capitol last month,” voting rights group Fair Fight spokesman Seth Bringman
Attachment number 1 \nPage 3 of 4
Item # 4
said. “The bills are unnecessary by Republicans' own assessments of the 2020 election, and designed to limit access and help
Republicans stop losing elections in Georgia. Republicans wrote Georgia's election laws, but they were humiliated on Nov. 3
and Jan. 5, so they are seeking to silence Georgians, particularly communities of color, who exercised their power to change
Georgia. Fair Fight and our allies are prepared to fight every Republican attempt to roll back voting rights. Their desperation to
hold onto power at the expense of Georgians' constitutional right to access the ballot has never been clearer."
Raffensperger, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, House Speaker David Ralston and Gov. Brian Kemp have all pushed back at various
times against Trump-backed conspiracies and claims about the integrity of Georgia's elections and support some changes to
voting laws, but not to the degree proposed by Senate Republicans. Duncan stripped Sens. Beach and Jones of their
chairmanships and moved Sen. Brass off the high-profile Redistricting Committee after they participated in efforts to
undermine faith in the electoral process. The trio also are part of a faction that challenged President pro tem Butch Miller in
leadership elections last fall. Ralston said he does not support eliminating no-excuse absentee voting, opting for strengthening
ID laws instead.
The secretary of state has also pushed back against an avalanche of misinformation and attacks on the way Georgia's election
were run, culminating in an extraordinary early January phone call where former President Trump pressured Raffensperger to
"find" enough votes to overturn the presidential race. A few days later, incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly
Loeffler lost to Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, in part because of depressed turnout in Republican strongholds egged
on by false claims of a rigged election process.
Raffensperger's office ends its press release with a footnote boasting of Georgia as a "national leader in elections," though that
could soon change with the flurry of legislation dropping in both chambers.
"[Georgia] was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 16 days of early
voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no-excuse absentee voting," it reads. "Georgia continues to set records
for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018
midterm election and record turnout in 2020, with over 1.3 million absentee by mail voters and over 3.6 million in-person
voters utilizing Georgia’s new, secure, paper ballot voting system."
About the author
STEP HEN FOWLER (/AUTHOR/STE PH EN-FO WLER )
POLITICAL REPORTER
Stephen Fowler is an award-winning reporter and photographer for GPB News covering state and local politics.
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