Georgia Republicans are back to their old tricks, doing everything in their power to take control back from Black voters and Democrats—including a repeat of suppressive Jim Crow-era voting practices, such as replacing Black election board members with white men and killing early voting on Sundays. 

Thanks to the passage of S.B. 202, which allows the Republican-controlled State Election Board to control county boards it judges to be failing, for months, Republicans have been stealthy in reorganizing boards to remove Black board members and replace them with white, conservative, Trump-supporting men. 

A year ago, the five-member Spalding County election board comprised three Black women and a Black elections supervisor. Today, all three of the women have been replaced by white Republicans and a new board chairman, Ben Johnson—a former official of the county Republican party, who supports not only the one-term, twice-impeached President Trump but also the “big lie” and is (of course) an anti-vaxxer. 

Spalding, a rural neighborhood south of Atlanta, is one of six county boards Republicans in Georgia have reorganized leading up to the 2022 midterms. As reported by Reuters, up until 2013, Georgia elections operated under federal oversight to ensure Black citizens weren’t being disenfranchised in a state proud of its long history of racial segregation. 

Five of the counties—Troup, Morgan, Pickens, Stephens, and Lincoln—the reorganized boards shifted to members of local county commissions, all of which are controlled by Republicans. Prior to the switch, the split was even between parties to make sure the board was nonpartisan. In Spalding, each party still chooses two members, but the fifth was once chosen with a coin flip; now, it’s decided by local judges, who are primarily right-wing conservatives. 

According to Reuters, Morgan County ejected two outspoken Black Democrats. In Troup County, a Black Democratic member claims the board restructuring aimed to oust her after she fought to increase access to voting for residents.

Local county election boards hold a great deal of power. They decide polling locations, procedures for early voting, and control provisional-ballot tallies, audits, and recounts. Of course Republicans want that control—especially in Georgia. 

In addition to eliminating early Sunday voting in Spalding County, Lincoln County is considering a consolidation of seven of its polling places, making it difficult for those who live a long distance to get to their polling station. 

Trump won Spalding County with 60% of the vote in 2020, but that was down 4% from 2016 as Black turnout jumped 20% with a population of 35%. Reuters reports that Trump supporters searched through the trash for tossed ballots, but none were found. 

As hard as Georgia Republicans argue that reorganizing the board is meant to restore voter confidence, the truth is that this is all just old-fashioned systemic racism. 

Monday, Georgia Republican Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, introduced S.B. 325, a ban on ballot drop boxes in the state. 

As it stands now, counties must have at least one absentee ballot dropbox, but not over one box per 100,00 active, registered voters or the number of advance voting locations in the county, whichever is less. 

“This is the next step in our fight to restore Georgians’ faith in our election systems,” Miller told Fox-5 News Atlanta. “Drop boxes were introduced as an emergency measure during the pandemic, but many counties did not follow the security guidelines in place, such as the requirement for camera surveillance on every dropbox. Moving forward, we can return to a pre-pandemic normal of voting in person. Removing drop boxes will help rebuild the trust that has been lost. Many see them as the weak link to securing our elections against fraud. For the small number of Georgians who need to vote absentee, that will remain as easy and accessible as it was before 2020.”

Miller presided over Senate Bill 202. 

“I’m proud of it,” Miller has said. “Republicans and Democrats were asking for election reform, and we have election reform that builds confidence, gives trust and transparency to our election process.”  

Helen Butler, one of the two Black Democrats on the Morgan County board, removed and replaced by a white Republican man, testified before a special U.S. Senate subcommittee in July, arguing that she was removed for fighting for fair elections with ballot drop boxes and multiple polling locations.

She warned the committee the moves by GOP in her state could “enable members of the majority party to overturn election results they do not like.”