GA Election Board Asks State To End No-Excuse Mail-In Voting

The Georgia State Election Board (SEB) formally asked the state legislature to end no-excuse mail-in voting in Georgia.

In a 3-2 vote on October 22, the SEB approved a proposal that will officially recommend the state legislature end no-excuse mail-in voting when it reconvenes for session in January, according to The Georgia Recorder.

The proposal was introduced previously but failed to pass, with Chairman John Fervier previously casting the deciding “no” vote. But fellow SEB member Dr. Jan Johnston re-introduced the measure, saying that no excuse mail-in voting “should be the exception rather than the rule,” according to The Georgia Recorder.

“We cannot guarantee secrecy of the ballot if it is in someone’s home or in someone’s apartment foyer or in someone’s post office box,” Johnston reportedly said during the meeting. “We can do much better with protecting the voter and the ballot if they’re in the secure polling place.”

Fellow SEB member Janelle King, who voted alongside Rick Jeffares and Johnson to pass the recommendation, told The Federalist that “Ending no-excuse absentee voting doesn’t harm those who truly need access to absentee ballots — it protects them. The policy began with good intentions but has since created loopholes that have been exploited, weakening trust in our elections.”

“As members of the Board of Elections, our responsibility is to provide oversight and safeguard the integrity of Georgia’s elections,” King continued. “That means supporting the removal of policies that no longer serve the people of Georgia or the fairness of the process.”

Fervier reportedly opposed the recommendation, arguing that “There are a lot of people out there that work seven days a week to feed their families, make ends meet — especially now — and restricting their access to absentee voting is not fair to those people.”

[READ NEXT: Did Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger Illegally Change Absentee Ballot Rules In 2020]

Nationwide, limitations on the use of mail-in voting are popular. A 2023 survey exclusively shared with The Federalist and conducted by the Honest Elections Project found that 76 percent of voters believe “voting in person is better than voting by mail” and that 73 percent of Americans “reject automatically sending ballots without a voter’s request.”

Mass mail-in voting comes with a host of issues, such as postal delays impacting the timely receipt of ballots, postal theft that leaves ballots vulnerable and insecure, and potential assault and robbery against postal workers.

Ahead of the 2020 election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure and Security agency (CISA) admitted mass mail-in voting is prone to issues and that election officials would face difficulties such as the “process of mailing and returning ballots,” “high number of improperly completed ballots” and “the shortage of personnel to process ballots in a prompt manner.” Publicly, however, CISA was flagging these very same concerns as disinformation on social media.

Notably, according to The Georgia Recorder, “A record number of Georgians voted by mail-in ballot in the 2020 general election cycle.”