Allowing drop boxes to be located in a variety of places and accessed 24/7, rather than just on government property and staffed by a worker, would increase access and decrease costs. Unmanned drop boxes have been proven to be safe, secure, effective ways to increase access to the ballot through permanent and video monitored 24/7 drop boxes. These options reduce strain on the postal system, and are sometimes a preferred method by voters who want an extra bit of reassurance that their ballot makes it to the elections office on time. Additionally, we highly recommend including provisions to allow for ballots to be received at polling places, vote centers, and other locations deemed necessary by the clerk. Additionally, creating vote centers that any voter in the county can vote at and allowing voters to drop off their absentee ballots at polling places would further lessen the reliance on the postal service and increase voter convenience and confidence.

We highly recommend creating vote centers, or polling locations where any voter in the county can vote. Georgia actually already has all of the technology in place at all of their polling locations to turn them into vote centers, allowing any voter in the state to vote at them. This is a way to streamline the system so over time, as the share of the vote cast by mail increases, counties can have fewer overall polling locations, while individual voters will have more voting location options.

Georgia implemented top-tier ballot tracking in the 2020 election and should make it a permanent feature for all future elections. This system has been shown to increase voter confidence by allowing voters to track their ballot much like an Amazon package and add a layer of data for the elections office who can also track the ballots to make sure they have reached their destination. Furthermore, these tools can be used as another modality to contact voters if there is a signature mismatch or deficiency on their return envelope. An expanded notification system helps keep rejection rates low and increases voter confidence and participation.

With a drastic increase in mail ballots, Georgia has a great opportunity to expand it’s pilot program statewide and reach for the gold standard of post-election security by implementing risk limiting audits. Georgia’s data infrastructure would be further improved by implementing automatic and same day voter registration (Automatic Voter Registration and Same Day Voter Registration). Both of these would ensure that any eligible resident who wants to cast a ballot in an election can, regardless of whether they have submitted their registration forms on time.

Simplifying the return process for a ballot is just as important as simplifying the request process. Ensuring that voters do not need to make an extra trip to the post office is not only a voter-centric reform, but also a safety reform.

Accepting ballots with Election Day postmarks is a best practice to ensure that voters are given all options to vote their ballot in a timely manner. In fact, doing so is estimated in most jurisdictions to decrease ballot rejection rates by half. Current law allows for ballots to be requested up to four days before the election, and that is most likely too short of a timespan for all requests to be processed, ballots to be mailed, voted, and returned by mail by close of polls. Georgia should expand their existing postmark acceptance that they provide for overseas and military voters to all voters.

Georgia can reduce costs and increase voter convenience by expanding it’s permanent absentee voting list, where voters can sign up to automatically be sent an absentee ballot for each election without having to re-apply. Expanding Georgia’s permanent absentee option to all residents and making the list truly permanent, rather than from year to year, would save the state significant expenses by cutting down on the requests they need to process; on average, states save $1 for every request they no longer need to process.

Voters should have sufficient time to correct any issues with their ballot In the event that a voter’s ballot is rejected. Georgia’s current cure deadline of three days after the election leaves many voters behind, especially since absentee ballots can be requested up to four days before the election. As more voters use absentee ballots and, understandably, the number of rejected absentee ballots increases, we recommend implementing a Text2Cure system that allows voters to cure their ballots from their phones. Georgia can implement this system in conjunction with their exemplary ballot tracking system.

SB 202 requires that all absentee ballot requests include ID or or social security numbers, which is a barrier to low-income voters without ID or who don’t have (or don’t know) their SSN. This is completely unnecessary for security, as the signatures on the absentee application and on the ballot are already compared to the voter registration signature on file. Additionally, while it does make drop boxes permanent, it places new limits where drop boxes can be located and requires they be staffed at all times, an unnecessary (and costly) provision that decreases access. Further, the bill banned election officials from proactively mailing voters absentee ballot applications or absentee ballots. It’s not all bad, though: ballot preprocessing, a wholly good emergency provision from 2020, was made permanent in SB202.