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- A provision of a new Georgia law bans volunteers from delivering food or drinks to voters in line.
- The controversial law, SB 202, has been condemned by Democrats and voting rights group.
- In 2020, volunteers gave food, water, and other supplies to voters in hours-long lines.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
A controversial provision of a massive voting and election administration-related bill signed into law in Georgia on Thursday will prohibit volunteers from delivering free supplies like food, water, chairs, or rain gear to voters waiting in line to vote.
The 96-page Election Integrity Act of 2021, or SB 202, was passed by both chambers of Georgia's Republican-controlled state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday evening.
The bill includes big changes for voters and election officials, including expansions of early voting, changes to absentee by-mail voting, codifying drop boxes into state law, and altering the structure of the State Elections Board to bolster the legislature's power and give the Board more authority to discipline local officials.
The legislation has received widespread criticism and condemnation from Democrats and voting rights groups, particularly over the ban on delivering supplies in line.
Section 33 of the bill states:
"No person shall solicit votes in any manner or by any means or method, nor shall any person distribute or display any campaign material, nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector, nor shall any person solicit signatures for any petition, nor shall any person, other than election officials discharging their duties, establish or set up any tables or booths on any day in which ballots are being cast."
Those limits apply inside and within 150 feet of voting locations, and within 25 feet of voting lines.
The section of the law says that volunteers and election officials, however, can set up water stations that voters can independently go to.
Long lines to vote have been a pervasive problem in Georgia for many years, particularly in the highly populous and fast-growing precincts in the metro Atlanta area. Some advocacy groups see the provision as specifically targeting grassroots organizations who helped voters deal with long lines.
Previously, the law only banned explicit electioneering within 150 feet of the polls, not volunteers handing out free supplies.
As election officials and poll workers were tasked with running an election during a pandemic and holding their first election using Georgia's relatively new Dominion Voting Systems equipment, voters faced hours-long lines in Georgia's June 2020 presidential and congressional primaries and during early voting for the November presidential election.
In those elections, volunteers with groups like Black Voters Matter brought water and pizza to voters waiting in long lines. As ReWire News Group reported, the group got into a dispute with at least one county election supervisor, who accused them of breaking the law.
The new legislation, SB 202, makes efforts to cut down on excessively long lines. It will allow individuals to serve as pollworkers outside of their county of residence, and require officials overseeing precints that include over 2,000 voters with wait times of more than an hour in 2020 to either open another voting location or add more volunteers, equipment, or both.