Taking the Pulse of Georgia Local Election Officials After Senate Bill 202

Abstract

In the aftermath of Republicans’ stinging losses in 2020 and 2021, which contributed to relinquishing the presidency and U.S. Senate majority, respectively, Georgia’s GOP lawmakers passed comprehensive electoral reform in Senate Bill (SB) 202. In this Field Note, we outline SB 202’s major provisions, and then present results of a survey querying Georgia local election officials (LEOs) to assess how SB 202 affected administrative performance in the 2022 midterm elections. Unquestionably, SB 202’s raft of reforms greatly altered Georgia’s administrative apparatus, but it is anything but clear that these changes in the aggregate either improved or detracted from the system it replaced. Indeed, the most credible judgment rendered from LEOs, is that administrative performance is case-specific, and therefore highly contingent upon the reform of interest.