Atlanta Mayor Signs Order ‘Mitigating The Impact’ Of Georgia Election Security Bill

Democrat Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed an executive order on Wednesday to “mitigate the impact” of Georgia’s new election security bill known as The Election Integrity Act of 2021.

Georgia has received widespread criticism of the bill, with false claims of it being Jim Crow 2.0, resulting in boycotts from multiple corporations, like Major League Baseball.

President Biden, who told voters during his 2020 campaign that “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” was also a major critic of the bill. Biden falsely claimed that the bill would restrict the ability of local polling hours — which is the opposite of true — earning him four Pinocchios from the Washington Post.

Bottoms’ executive order explicitly instructs the Chief Equity Officer to consult with the Department of Law and “develop a plan of action that will help mitigate the impact” of Georgia’s election security bill. The order also instructs the city’s non-emergency services department, ATL311, to work with the mayor’s Office of Constituent Services to ease the impact of the state’s election security bill, including the plan to place QR codes with links to voter registration and absentee voting information on official mail, like water bills.

“The voting restrictions of SB 202 will disproportionately impact Atlanta residents—particularly in communities of color and other minority groups. This Administrative Order is designed to do what those in the majority of the state legislature did not—expand access to our right to vote,” Bottoms said in a statement, ignoring the parts of the bill that expanded access to voting.

In an analysis of Georgia’s election security bill, Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting wrote, “One of the biggest changes in the bill would expand early voting access for most counties, adding an additional mandatory Saturday and formally codifying Sunday voting hours as optional.”

“Counties can have early voting open as long as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at minimum,” Fowler added. “If you live in a larger metropolitan county, you might not notice a change. For most other counties, you will have an extra weekend day, and your weekday early voting hours will likely be longer.”