Measure limiting some early voting passed by Georgia Senate

Hundreds of Georgia cities and towns would be able to cut early voting from three weeks to one week under a bill passed Thursday by the Georgia Senate.

House Bill 891 applies only to municipal elections, not counties or state elections. It would allow more than 500 municipal governments to seek legislative approval for reducing early voting, a change some fear could hurt minority voters.

The Senate made changes to the bill to appease those concerns. As originally written, the bill would have automatically reduced early voting in municipal elections and required cities that wanted to keep three weeks of voting to seek legislative approval.

The Senate passed the measure 36-16. It now heads back to the House for final approval.