5 State Laws Based On Voter Fraud Myths

Photos: ACLU\Project Vote

As the Janu­ary 6 commit­tee hear­ings have made clear, the attack on the Capitol was fueled by false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 pres­id­en­tial elec­tion. While the insur­rec­tion failed, the damage from the Big Lie of a “stolen” elec­tion is ongo­ing.

2021 and 2022 have been record-break­ing years for new legis­lat­ive attacks on voting and elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion. Bren­nan Center research has found that most of the legis­la­tion has been fueled and justi­fied by misin­form­a­tion. And in upcom­ing elec­tions, voters and elec­tion offi­cials will have to navig­ate new burdens imposed by some of these laws. Here are a few examples of the effects of the Big Lie that voters will face this fall.

Georgia

Geor­gia was the subject of a storm of litig­a­tion over the 2020 elec­tion, threats of viol­ence and harass­ment toward elec­tion offi­cials and voters, and targeted attempts to change the elec­tion results — includ­ing an hour-long phone call in which Trump urged the state’s top elec­tion offi­cial to “find” enough votes for him to win. Despite their univer­sal fail­ure in court, many of the Big Lie–in­spired false claims made in these lawsuits motiv­ated legis­lat­ive provi­sions that will be in place for the 2022 elec­tions.

Geor­gia Senate Bill 202

GA S.B. 202, enacted last year, responds to the lies pushed in these base­less lawsuits with remark­able preci­sion. In one case, a plaintiff falsely claimed that private funds were provided to Fulton County to “pay ballot harvesters” and to “pay for . . . the plan to remove the poll watch­ers from one polit­ical party so that the crit­ical respons­ib­il­ity of determ­in­ing . . . the valid­ity of the count could be conduc­ted without over­sight.” She also alleged that “absentee voting records demon­strate illegal votes being coun­ted and legal votes not being coun­ted” in excess of 50,000 votes.

Other cases claimed that the state’s use of drop boxes some­how increased the risk of fraud — another popu­lar Big Lie conspir­acy theory. Courts rejec­ted these lawsuits, and Geor­gia Secret­ary of State Brad Raffen­sper­ger’s testi­mony to the Janu­ary 6 commit­tee thor­oughly debunked these claims.

However, S.B. 202 seem­ingly valid­ates these alleg­a­tions by prohib­it­ing local elec­tion admin­is­trat­ors from accept­ing fund­ing from private sources and expand­ing the legal rights of poll watch­ers to observe elec­tions without constraints by elec­tion admin­is­trat­ors. The law also limits the avail­ab­il­ity of drop boxes and restricts access to mail voting by impos­ing stricter iden­ti­fic­a­tion require­ments for absentee voters and short­en­ing the window to apply for absentee ballots. Tellingly, one of S.B. 202’s cospon­sors echoed wide­spread conspir­acies support­ing the Big Lie, suggest­ing in an op-ed that unre­li­able mail ballots changed the outcome of certain races in 2020.

Geor­gia Senate Bill 441

Although there is abso­lutely no evid­ence of wide­spread voter fraud in Geor­gia or any other state, S.B. 441 grants the Geor­gia Bureau of Invest­ig­a­tion the author­ity to invest­ig­ate voter fraud and refer any perceived viol­a­tions for prosec­u­tion. This bill directs even more resources toward invest­ig­at­ing fraud and opens up the risk of polit­ic­ally motiv­ated prosec­u­tions, which is partic­u­larly concern­ing when viewed along­side the range of new penal­ties created by S.B. 202.

County-Specific Bills

In addi­tion to chal­len­ging certain voting meth­ods, elec­tion deni­al­ists directly attacked local elec­tion offi­cials in court, blam­ing them for the results of the 2020 elec­tion and accus­ing them of miscon­duct. Over a dozen lawsuits were filed against county boards of elec­tions, alleging fraud and seek­ing to block certi­fic­a­tion or over­turn the elec­tion results.

The Geor­gia legis­lature respon­ded to these cases as well by wrest­ing power from certain county boards of elec­tions, creat­ing the poten­tial for partisan inter­fer­ence in the admin­is­tra­tion of elec­tions. These county boards are respons­ible for admin­is­ter­ing elec­tions, count­ing votes, and certi­fy­ing results. S.B. 202 grants the state board of elec­tions the author­ity to inter­fere with how local elec­tions are run by remov­ing profes­sional elec­tion offi­cials and taking control of elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion in specific juris­dic­tions.

Addi­tion­ally, Geor­gia passed at least eight county-specific bills since 2020 that restruc­ture local boards of elec­tions. These restruc­tur­ings have often led to greater partisan advant­age and in partic­u­lar have removed Black Demo­crats from several boards.

Florida

The Big Lie took partic­u­lar hold in Flor­ida, where top state offi­cials embraced conspir­acy theor­ies and stoked doubt about the outcome of the 2020 elec­tion. Flor­ida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) publicly ques­tioned the 2020 results, claim­ing, “vote dumps . . . happen­ing a day or two or three days after Elec­tion Night, so you have one candid­ate that has a huge win, and then all of a sudden, fortunes change.”

Flor­ida Senate Bill 90

Shortly after DeSantis made these state­ments, the state enacted S.B. 90, an omni­bus voter suppres­sion law that makes it signi­fic­antly harder for voters to cast their ballots in the state.

The law is based on many Big Lie conspir­acies, restrict­ing access to mail voting, drop boxes, and voter assist­ance. Among its provi­sions, S.B. 90 adds stricter voter ID require­ments for voters request­ing absentee ballots, requires constant monit­or­ing of drop boxes, reduces the avail­ab­il­ity of drop boxes outside of early voting hours, and makes it signi­fic­antly more diffi­cult for civic organ­iz­a­tions to assist people in regis­ter­ing to vote.

Flor­ida Senate Bill 524

Flor­ida also enacted S.B. 524, which creates a new Office of Elec­tion Crimes and Secur­ity within the Flor­ida Depart­ment of State, respons­ible for invest­ig­at­ing viol­a­tions of elec­tion law and refer­ring them for prosec­u­tion. Like S.B. 441 in Geor­gia, Flor­id­a’s S.B. 524 directs addi­tional resources toward invest­ig­at­ing and prosec­ut­ing elec­tion crimes and threatens to enable partisan inter­fer­ence in elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion. Flor­id­a’s recently appoin­ted secret­ary of state, who will over­see the new office, is a prom­in­ent supporter of elec­tion conspir­acies and has refused to say Pres­id­ent Biden won the 2020 elec­tion.

Texas

Texas was the source of a raft of conspir­acy theor­ies and attempts to use the court system to throw out validly cast votes or even over­turn the elec­tion entirely. For example, several lawsuits chal­lenged drive-thru voting in Harris County and sought to have votes already cast at drive-thru sites tossed out.

The county’s policy allow­ing drive-thru voting, the plaintiffs argued in one case, “creates an oppor­tun­ity ripe for fraud,” which would cause the “outcome of the elec­tion [to be] in doubt.” And after Elec­tion Day, Attor­ney General Ken Paxton unsuc­cess­fully sued several states in a bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court reject their pres­id­en­tial elect­ors on the concocted basis of vague accus­a­tions of fraud in the mail voting process.

Litig­a­tion was not the only source of attemp­ted elec­tion sabot­age arising from Texas. A Texas man was arres­ted earlier this year for making death threats against elec­tion offi­cials in Geor­gia on the basis of false claims about the 2020 elec­tion.

These lawsuits and vari­ous attempts to over­turn the elec­tion were all unsuc­cess­ful, but Texas voters will face barri­ers in the midterms because of these false claims. Legis­lat­ors claimed that the “Novem­ber 2020 elec­tion demon­strated the lack of trans­par­ency and lack of integ­rity within the elec­tion process.” Draw­ing from this unfoun­ded notion, the legis­lature almost enacted a bill with a provi­sion actu­ally called “Over­turn­ing Elec­tion” that would have gran­ted partisan judges expan­ded powers to throw out the results of an elec­tion based on tenu­ous evid­ence of fraud.

Texas Senate Bill 1

The legis­lature went on to enact S.B. 1, which prohib­its drive-thru voting and imposes addi­tional restric­tions on obtain­ing and return­ing an absentee ballot. It also imposes substan­tial restric­tions on voter assist­ance for voters with disab­il­it­ies or limited English profi­ciency and expands the powers of partisan poll watch­ers on Elec­tion Day. In addi­tion to other impacts, the law has already led to high rejec­tion rates of mail ballots. The Big Lie was defeated in court in Texas, but its promoters were still able to use it to justify further restric­tions on voting.

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Legis­lat­ors across the coun­try have relied on base­less claims about 2020 to justify laws that restrict the right to vote and increase the risk of elec­tion inter­fer­ence. The examples provided above are just a portion of the new laws that will affect elec­tions in Novem­ber. The lies about the 2020 elec­tion have had such a wide­spread effect that even legis­lat­ors who reject these claims them­selves, like in Montana, are intro­du­cing and passing restrict­ive voting laws to alle­vi­ate the concerns of voters who do believe these lies.

The Janu­ary 6 insur­rec­tion may have been unsuc­cess­ful, but clearly, the Big Lie and the ongo­ing damage it is inflict­ing on our demo­cracy are not going away.

By Will Wilder and Katie Friel