ATLANTA, GA – The Georgia House of Representatives has hastily introduced twin omnibus voting bills that would change Georgia from being one of the most inclusive states for absentee ballot access in the U.S. to one of the most restrictive. HB 531 was introduced last week and SB 241 was introduced last night, with votes coming as early as next week. The former would eliminate Sunday early voting, a provision with no legitimate rationale and blatantly aimed at Black communities’ effective use of Souls to the Polls events to mobilize their voters. The latter would set an age requirement for absentee voting at 65.

“If Georgia’s anti-voter legislation is passed, it would be devastating for voting rights. This partisan effort is part of a larger disturbing trend of restrictive voting bills that are gaining steam across the U.S. this year. Election laws should be structured to increase voter participation, not to suppress it,” said Danielle Lang, co-director of voting rights at Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “We all care about election integrity. That is why no-excuse absentee voting, just like in-person voting, incorporates rigorous and highly effective processes to ensure ballots are legitimate. The best way to strengthen confidence in our elections is for lawmakers to stop spreading false claims about the security of the 2020 election. No-excuse absentee voting is used by 34 states and was passed on a bipartisan basis in Georgia in 2005. After a record 1.3 million Georgians voted in 2020, there is no reason to move backwards.”

Georgia officials, including Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have repeatedly debunked claims of systemic irregularities in the 2020 elections, which are being used to justify this legislative agenda. In reaction to the many bills making their way through the legislature, Raffensperger said, “At the end of the day many of these bills are reactionary to a disinformation campaign that could have been prevented.” House Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over the Senate, have both announced they will not support any bill that curtails eligibility to vote by mail.

A new national survey conducted by Strategies 360 finds that American voters firmly reject recent state legislation restricting eligible Americans’ ability to vote safely, securely, and in a convenient manner. Americans emphatically endorse states’ efforts over the past year to give voters more options for voting safely during the pandemic, including absentee voting. A 70% majority of voters approve of these changes while just 26% disapprove.

Washington, D.C. – Today, Republican and Democratic former chairs of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Trevor Potter and Ann Ravel, submitted a letter of support for the FEC reform provisions in the For the People Act (H.R.1/S.1) to congressional leaders. The failures of the FEC to protect the integrity of the federal campaign process by providing transparency and fairly enforcing campaign finance law, and the reforms needed to strengthen the agency are outlined in the letter from the former chairs, one appointed by former President George H. W. Bush and one appointed by former President Barack Obama.   

The FEC is responsible for enforcing the laws that govern the U.S. campaign finance system for campaigns for president and Congress. It is the only government agency whose sole responsibility is overseeing the integrity of our political campaigns. Over the past decade, the FEC has routinely failed to enforce the law even when presented with clear violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act. The agency routinely deadlocks and fails to reach the required four votes necessary to open an investigation and enforce violations or update campaign finance regulations. At the same time, there has been an increase in candidates, parties and independent organizations that push the boundaries of the Federal Election Campaign Act, violating the law, and operating under the safe assumption that any punishment is unlikely to be enforced by the FEC.  

“For the first three decades of its existence, the Commission performed its functions at least reasonably well,” said Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center and Republican former chair of the FEC, “But since then, the FEC has grown deeply dysfunctional, and our democracy has suffered as a result. To fix the FEC, the For the People Act draws from the bipartisan Restoring Integrity to America’s Elections Act, which was introduced with Republican and Democratic co-sponsors in the last three sessions of Congress.” 

Under current law, the FEC is led by six Commissioners nominated by the president, no more than three of whom can be from the same political party. The political custom is that nominees are recommended by party leaders in Congress. It takes a vote of four of those Commissioners to write new rules or take any substantive action. The current structure of the FEC means that any three Commissioners can paralyze the agency.   

“As political spending increases and the online political advertising landscape becomes more complicated and in need of regulation, the very agency we need to ensure the health of our democracy is ineffectual,” said Ann. M. Ravel, Digital Deception Project Director at MapLight and Democratic former Chair of the FEC. “It’s time for Congress to help restore public trust in government and our elections by enacting meaningful changes to the FEC and passing the For the People Act.”

The For the People Act would restructure the FEC in three ways. It would change the number of Commissioners from six to five, with the requirement that no more than two Commissioners be members of the same political party; create a nonpartisan advisory panel to identify and recommend qualified nominees; and strengthen the enforcement process to prevent Commissioners from shutting down investigations at an early stage.

The FEC’s inaction has resulted in an explosion in secret spending and our politics increasingly rigged in favor of wealthy special interests. To reduce political corruption and protect the voices of voters in our democracy, we need a stronger FEC that will enforce campaign finance law. The For the People Act would fix the FEC.  

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Campaign Legal Center Action (CLCA) and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that the NRA Victory Fund violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by failing to properly disclose legally required information for individual contributors who together gave over $500,000. The complaint shines a light on the latest example in a repeated pattern of the National Rifle Association (NRA) subverting campaign finance laws.  

During the 2020 election cycle, the NRA Victory Fund received 46 itemized contributions from 42 individual contributors, who together gave $510,500 between July and December. Employer and occupation information was disclosed for just two out of the 42 contributors, and several months after first filing incomplete reports with the FEC, the super political action committee (PAC) has yet to amend any FEC reports to disclose any donor’s occupation or employer.

“Federal law requires that a super PAC ask donors for occupation and employer information and follow up if that information is not provided. The NRA super PAC’s failure to disclose occupation and employer information for 95% of its individual donors suggests a systematic effort to evade federal disclosure requirements by not collecting the required information, or by not reporting it, or both.” said Brendan Fischer, Campaign Legal Center Action director of federal reform. “It is highly unlikely that 95% of the NRA Victory Fund contributors ignored the committee’s request for occupation and employer information at the time they made their donation and additionally ignored the super PAC’s follow-up requests.”

 “The NRA Victory Fund is desperate to hide how its operations are funded from the American people,” said David Pucino, Giffords Law Center Senior Staff Attorney. “This isn’t just sloppy accounting. It’s part of a larger pattern of self-dealing, corruption and blatant disregard for the rules at the heart of the modern NRA. It’s time for them to provide honest answers on their donors.”

Political committees, regardless of their mission, must identify all individuals who contribute over $200 in a calendar year and that must disclose their donors’ occupations and employers. Real transparency about who is spending money on elections needs to be enforced in order to reduce political corruption. The FEC is the only government agency whose sole responsibility is overseeing the integrity of our political campaigns, and it must investigate and hold NRA Victory Fund accountable for its blatant disregard for campaign finance laws.

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For over 25 years, the legal experts at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence have been fighting for a safer America. Led by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Giffords Law Center researches, drafts, and defends the laws, policies, and programs proven to save lives from gun violence.