Georgia, Stop Shaming Voters Who Can’t Read in the Runoff
Last election, as part of a voter protection effort, I saw complaints come in of poll workers intimidating illiterate voters and those who try to assist them. This is nothing new, and indeed, it is subtly encouraged by Georgia’s law. It has to stop.
Those who need assistance are often poor and educationally deprived. That is often black people in Georgia, and those who are foreign born. Georgia also
has a long history of voter intimidation to keep black people away from the polls, including literacy tests, which were only forbidden by amendments to the Voting Rights Act in 1982.
Today, an illiterate or disabled voter must state under oath they need assistance when applying for an absentee ballot, and must notify a poll officer if they need help when voting in person. It is a felony to knowingly give false information to poll officers in an attempt to vote, and a misdemeanor to let someone help you without swearing you qualify for assistance. Indeed, it is a misdemeanor for poll officers to allow voters to be assisted if they know they are not disabled, or to fail to keep a record of who assisted whom. These lists have been used to harass activists and voters in spurious criminal investigations.
This is how the veiled threat works: Someone approaches the voter registration desk or the polling place with an assistant — a relative, a friend, or a community activist. The election official might quiz the voter as to whether they are really unable to read or sign their name, and may sternly warn the voter and the assistant that giving false information is a felony. This leaves people understandably frightened and angry. There also have been cases where persons trying to help illiterate voters have been systematically harassed, investigated, or even prosecuted.
At first blush, it sounds reasonable to prohibit giving poll workers false information. But asking for help you may not need in navigating the ballot is qualitatively much different than trying to fool an official about your qualification to vote at all, or pretending to be someone else, or trying to vote twice.
First, there is little chance that someone who asks for assistance is lying — it is no badge of honor to admit you can’t read, and indeed, it appears that legislators are counting on shame to keep their illiterate neighbors away from the polls. And of course, that’s not the only reason people may need help. Disability, or growing up in a different tongue can trip up people filling out ballots, voter registration forms, or vote curing affidavits. Even people who can read at a very basic level or sign their name often cannot easily read through the instructions on these forms, never mind the complex language on ballot initiatives.
Arguments about restricting assistance rest on fears that those who assist may influence the voters or dictate their choices. But non-coercive influence is not per se a problem — otherwise we would not allow political campaigns, much less allow your daughter to ask for voting advice as she drives you to the polls. There are already ample restraints on electioneering at polling sites, or actual intimidation at the polls. Letting someone help a voter read and mark a ballot seems threatening if you don’t think illiterate or semi-literate people can make their own choices….or if you believe they won’t choose your favored party.
By law, poll managers and clerks are to perform their duties “impartially” and without intimidating voters. Challenges to voters are not supposed to be made at the polls on election day, and poll officials have no role in determining challenges to voters — indeed, if a challenged voter appears to vote they must be allowed to do so on a special ballot. Poll workers should not be in the business of warning people about penal consequences or administering literacy tests, period.
Voting with assistance, of course, is not the only obstacle illiterate voters face. If they want to register, change their address, or cast an absentee ballot, they will have to run the same gauntlet of election officials who feel obliged to quiz them on their eligibility and inform them of consequences if they lie. And even if you can read, the Republican-dominated state legislature passed a raft of changes to the election law after 2020 that make voting much harder and more painful, including new requirements for absentee ballots, drop boxes, mobile voting centers — and a prohibition on even handing out food or water to people waiting in long lines.
Georgia’s law, taken as a whole, signals to poll officers that they are somehow empowered to enforce their prejudices, whether against people of color, the disabled, or Americans who seem “foreign.” It’s high time for Georgia and the federal government to correct this misimpression, and to do so before any further elections.
