The lawsuit, filed in June 2021 under former President Joe Biden, alleged that the Georgia law was intended to deny black voters equal access to the ballot. Bondi said the Biden administration was pushing “false claims of suppression.”
“Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us,” she said.
The law was part of a trend of Republican-backed measures that tightened rules around voting, passed in the months after Trump lost his reelection bid Biden, claiming that voter fraud cost him victory. The fallout was swift after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the law in March 2021, with the CEOs of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola voicing criticism and Major League Baseball's commissioner deciding to move that year's All-Star Game from Atlanta's Truist Park.
Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans who drew Trump's ire when they refused to help overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia, strongly denounced the Justice Department lawsuit when it was filed. Raffensperger on Monday called Bondi's announcement “a significant win for Georgia voters.”
“Our commitment has always been to ensure fair and secure elections for every Georgian, despite losing an All-Star game and the left’s boycott of Georgia as a result of commonsense election law,” Raffensperger said in a statement.
Known as SB 202, the law added a voter ID requirement for mail ballots, shortened the time period for requesting a mailed ballot and resulted in fewer ballot drop boxes available in populous metro Atlanta counties that lean Democratic and have a significant Black population. The law also banned the distribution of food and water by various groups and organizations to voters standing in line to cast a ballot.
In announcing the dismissal of the lawsuit, Bondi said black voter turnout in Georgia “actually increased” after the law was passed.
