Georgia SB 202 Enacts Comprehensive Voter Suppression with Multiple ALEC Provisions

Governor Brian Kemp signed Georgia’s SB 202, the “Election Integrity Act of 2021,” implementing a sweeping 98-page voter suppression law that became the first major state enactment of Trump’s “Big Lie” and ALEC’s post-2020 model legislation. Passed on strict party-line votes, the omnibus bill incorporated multiple ALEC provisions designed to reduce voter turnout, particularly in Black communities that had delivered Georgia for Joe Biden and elected two Democratic senators.

The law’s most notorious provision criminalized providing food or water to voters waiting in line within 150 feet of polling places—directly targeting Black voters who face disproportionately long wait times due to systematic polling place closures and resource deprivation in minority neighborhoods. Additional restrictions included: strict new photo ID requirements for absentee ballots replacing signature matching; shortened absentee ballot request windows (ending 11 days before elections); bans on mobile voting facilities like buses used in Fulton County; elimination of provisional ballot counting for voters at wrong precincts after 5pm; and reduced runoff election timeframes.

Most alarmingly, SB 202 restructured election administration to enable partisan interference. The Republican-controlled General Assembly gained power to elect the State Election Board chair by majority vote and appoint three of five voting members, while removing the Secretary of State as chair. The board received authority to suspend county election superintendents and appoint temporary replacements—creating mechanisms to overturn election results in Democratic-leaning counties. These provisions moved beyond vote suppression into potential election subversion, providing legal frameworks to reject outcomes Republicans disliked.

The legislation emerged directly from ALEC’s coordination with Heritage Action and other groups developing post-2020 model bills. Georgia’s law became the template that other states followed, with civil rights groups filing immediate lawsuits challenging it as intentional racial discrimination. Federal courts would later block some provisions, including the ban on providing water to voters, as likely First Amendment violations. SB 202 represented the systematic implementation of voter suppression infrastructure that ALEC had been building since 2009, escalated by Trump’s false fraud claims into a comprehensive assault on democratic participation.