• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. vote by mail>

Voting advocates lose a suit in Ga. but file new ones in N.H. and Miss.

Bill Theobald
August 12, 2020
Absentee ballot envelope
Bill Oxford/Getty Images

Requiring Georgia voters to provide their own stamps for mail-in ballots and ballot applications does not count as an unconstitutional poll tax, a federal judge ruled.

The decision is a setback for one of the most ambitious causes of voting rights advocates, who have filed dozens of lawsuits seeking to ease the rules of absentee voting in order to promote turnout for the pandemic-complicated November election.

But within hours of Tuesday's ruling, lawyers filed two fresh suits — in New Hampshire, which like Georgia is a presidential battleground this fall, and Mississippi, a deeply red state widely identified as the toughest place in the country to cast a ballot this year.

These are the details of the cases in the three states:


Georgia

The suit argued that the state's requirement that voters pay their own postage — which is also the law in 32 other states — effectively imposes a poll tax and is also an unjustifiable burden on the right to vote.

Judge Amy Totenberg of Atlanta kept alive the portion of the litigation questioning whether making voters pay postage imperils their voting rights. In declaring that "stamps are not poll taxes," however, she said that was because voters can cast ballots in person at no cost, so paying 55 cents for getting an absentee ballot and 55 cents more to return it is not unconstitutional.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The judge's ruling was not altogether a surprise. She had already declined to order the state to provide postage-paid envelopes for the June primary and Tuesday's runoffs — but had held off on a decision about the general election while pondering fresh arguments from both sides

The case was filed in April by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a group seeking to empower communities of color, the Black Votes Matter Fund. They argued that in-person voting is not a viable option during the pandemic and nearly impossible for some elderly and disabled voters.

The judge's ruling noted the bevvy of other lawsuits challenging the state's election rules and described her decision as "certainly not likely the final word on absentee balloting issues or the implementation of the absentee ballot process in Georgia."

Mississippi

The ACLU and the progressive Mississippi Center for Justice sued in state court to make absentee voting available to all during the coronavirus pandemic. After a wave of easements around the country, the state is one of just eight where a particular excuse beyond the fear of Covid-19 will be required to get a vote-by-mail ballot.

The law was changed this summer, however, to add "temporary physical disability" as one of the acceptable reasons along with being under a doctor-ordered quarantine or caring for someone quarantined.

The suit wants a judge to declare that all voters, not just those under doctor's orders, can cite the need to stay away from public places during the pandemic as reason enough to obtain an absentee ballot.

The suit says GOP Secretary of State Michael Watson's plan, which is to allow each local election administrator to decide how permissive the new law has made things, will sow confusion and establishes unfairly different rules.

New Hampshire

The lawsuit is the latest brought by Marc Elias, the attorney who has been running the Democrats' wide-ranging and aggressive effort to get the courts to make voting easier. He has now filed lawsuits in 19 states, this time on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers.

The state sent the mail-in ballots for November to all municipalities this week, and anyone can get one because New Hampshire is one of the places that has decided coronavirus precautions are an acceptable reason this year.

But there are plenty of other problems, the lawsuit says, echoing the complaints in most of the other Democratic lawsuits across the country. It challenges as illegally burdensome the process of registering to vote absentee, the postage charged to send in an absentee ballot, the requirement that absentee ballots arrive at election offices by Election Day, and the ban on people and groups collecting and delivering absentee ballots.

Randy Weingarten, president of the teachers' group, said the AFT is "taking this on as defenders of our democracy and to ensure everyone who is eligible to vote can do so in a fair and safe way in November."

From Your Site Articles
  • Pennsylvania to pay for postage for absentee ballots - The Fulcrum ›
  • South Carolina to pick up postage tab for absentee voters ›
  • Soft settlement ends Florida mail-in voting lawsuit ›
  • Conn. sending vote-by-mail offer to all, despite limits - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • How many stamps should I put on an absentee ballot? — Quartz ›
  • Here's How Many Stamps You Need to Mail an Absentee Ballot | Time ›
  • Mail-In Ballot Postage Becomes a Surprising (and Unnecessary ... ›
  • VOPP: Table 12: States With Postage-Paid Election Mail ›
vote by mail

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

Finding solutions to America’s civics crisis

Thomas Kelly

Stay safe: Black women need tools to end violent relationships

Natasha Crooks

AI leaves us no choice but to learn from the past

Kevin Frazier

Sandra Day O'Connor's legacy has been dismantled

Beau Breslin

America will be just fine without crypto

Tonantzin Carmona

Holiday reads: A handful of books offer to get you in the election year spirit

Rick LaRue
latest News

The danger of technology discrimination

Nakeema Stefflbauer
05 December

Winning proportional representation: Lessons from New Zealand

Cynthia Richie Terrell
Rob Richie
05 December

Johnny’s American future

Debilyn Molineaux
04 December

Are state governments ready for today’s unique challenges?

Kevin Frazier
01 December

2024 caucus-primary and general elections controlled by extremists

Steve Corbin
01 December

A crisis creates clarity for donors

Jack Miller
01 December
Videos
Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Our Staff
Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Our Staff
Video: The power of young voices

Video: The power of young voices

Our Staff
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
29 November

Podcast: Dr. F. Willis Johnson in a rich conversation with Patrick McNeal

Our Staff
14 November

Podcast: Better choices, better elections

Our Staff
23 October

Podcast: Are state legislators really accountable to their voters?

Our Staff
06 October
Recommended
civic education notebook

Finding solutions to America’s civics crisis

Civic Ed
Black woman

Stay safe: Black women need tools to end violent relationships

Faithful & Mindful Living
computer circuitry

AI leaves us no choice but to learn from the past

Technology
Sandra Day O'Connor being sworn in as a Supreme Court justice

Sandra Day O'Connor's legacy has been dismantled

Judicial
digital currency graphic

America will be just fine without crypto

Innovation & Incubation
Three political books: The Politics Industry, A Real Right to Vote, The Primary Solution

Holiday reads: A handful of books offer to get you in the election year spirit

Media