A revised bill that would limit early voting to 12 days passed a key committee vote Wednesday.
The House Governmental Affairs Committee voted 9-5 to advance House Bill 194. Sponsored by Rep. Mark Hamilton, R-Cumming, the bill originally would have required every county to be open on the Sunday during the early-voting period. But in an effort to please religious conservatives, the bill now makes Sunday voting optional.
Any county choosing not to open the polls on Sunday would be required to allow access to the polls on an additional Saturday.
Current law calls for 21 days of early voting and mandates that polls be open on at least one Saturday, but it does not prohibit Sunday voting. Eleven counties last year chose to open polling locations on Sundays, which led to calls from Republicans for statewide uniformity in voting.
Uniformity was a key impetus for the bill, Hamilton said.
“We’ve heard from many people that there was a lot of confusion over the Saturdays, the Sundays,” Hamilton said.
But Democrats questioned why the bill also cuts early voting.
The 21-day period was popular with voters, said Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur.
“If we found something voters like, why are we taking it away from them?” she asked.
Hamilton countered that the first week of the 21-day advance voting period was least popular and that the bill doesn’t change the 45-day period of absentee voting.
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