Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is asking the nation’s new attorney general to withdraw a federal lawsuit challenging election reform legislation the General Assembly passed in 2021.

The Biden administration sued to block provisions of Senate Bill 202, which Georgia lawmakers adopted in the wake of lawsuits President Donald Trump filed at the end of his first term challenging the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. Various courts rejected the Republican suits, ruling that Democrat Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes that year.

Senate Bill 202 required voters seeking to cast absentee ballots to show a photo ID, a provision that already applied to in-person voting. The 2021 legislation also limited the number of absentee ballot drop boxes and prohibited non-poll workers from handing out food and drinks within 150 feet of voters standing in line.

Democrats who opposed the bill called for economic boycotts of Georgia, which led to the relocation of Major League Baseball’s All-Star game in 2021 from Truist Park to Colorado. The game will be held at the Atlanta Braves’ ballpark this summer.

“The (Justice Department) should never be leveraged for political purposes,” Raffensperger said this week. “I hope Attorney General Bondi will join us in ending this frivolous lawsuit against the state of Georgia, and release documents exposing the coordination between the Biden (administration) and the liberal left.”

Raffensperger also cited a 2022 University of Georgia poll that found 99% of voters reported no issues casting their ballots, and a follow-up poll in 2024 that reflected a similarly high satisfaction rate, with 98% of voters experiencing no problems voting.

Capitol Beat is a nonprofit news service operated by the Georgia Press Educational Foundation that provides coverage of state government to newspapers throughout Georgia. For more information visit capitol-beat.org.