This article has been corrected. 3 corrections — see Corrections at the end of this article.

Threat Tier: 2 — HIGH Last Researched: September 7, 2026 Voting Rights Guide: Georgia Voting Rights Guide

Data currency notice: Election law, official contact information, and legislative status change frequently. Verify all information within 30 days of use.

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Recent Developments (Entry Point for Updates)

• September 4–7, 2026: Judge Indira Talwani (D. Mass.) issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the USPS mail-ballot rule through the November 3 election; the administration then asked the Supreme Court to stay it. That application is pending and the Court could act at any time. Georgia is neither a plaintiff nor an intervenor in the litigation.
• September 4, 2026: Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) demanded a definitive DHS policy on federal agents at polling places, naming Georgia among states where Republican candidates have discussed sending law enforcement to polls. The Joint Chiefs chairman says the military has no such plans; DHS has not said the same.
• August 28, 2026: Gwinnett DA Patsy Austin-Gatson filed the second lawsuit against HB 369, which makes county offices nonpartisan in five metro Atlanta counties from 2028.
• August 13, 2026: Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson told a supporter at a Columbus rally that he expects the National Guard to be part of Georgia’s Election Day landscape. See Official Statements below.
• August 7, 2026: A GOP-dominated legislative committee began work on recommending a replacement voting system — a 2028 process. Hand-marked paper ballots are the likely direction, but nothing changes for November.
• August 5, 2026: The NVRA 90-day quiet period began. Systematic voter removals are presumptively unlawful in Georgia through Election Day.
• July 8, 2026: The State Election Board adopted a rule seeking access to the Secretary of State’s election-night tabulation center, over an AG opinion that it lacks authority.
• June 25, 2026: Kemp signed SB 3EX, delaying the QR-code tabulation ban to 2028 — resolving the crisis that would have left counties with no lawful way to count November ballots. It also adds an automatic hand recount in statewide executive races decided by under 0.5%.
• June 17–23, 2026: Speaker Jon Burns refused Kemp’s call to redraw maps post-Callais; the special session ended with no redistricting. Georgia’s 2023 court-ordered maps stand for 2026.
• June 16, 2026: Primary runoffs set the November ballot — Governor: Rick Jackson (R) v. Keisha Lance Bottoms (D). U.S. Senate: Mike Collins (R) v. Jon Ossoff (D). Secretary of State: Tim Fleming (R) v. Penny Brown Reynolds (D).
• June 4, 2026: State Election Board member Janice Johnston, its most prominent election denier, resigned; Carolyn Roddy replaced her.
• February 21, 2026: The State Election Board declined, for now, to seize control of Fulton County’s election operations, while passing a measure seeking access to Fulton’s records once DOJ returns them.
• January 28, 2026: The FBI seized roughly 700 boxes of Fulton County 2020 election records under a sealed warrant. Fulton sued for their return; a judge denied the request.

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State Threat Profile

Georgia’s most acute 2026 threat — the July 1 QR-code ban that would have left counties with no lawful tabulation method — was defused by SB 3EX in June. The equipment overhaul is now a 2028 project, and November runs on the existing ballot-marking devices. What remains is slower and structural, and it runs on four tracks.

First, Georgia is one of the very few states where the Justice Department’s voter-data suit is still alive. Nationally DOJ has filed 31 suits, lost 23 on the merits, and won none at any level. In Georgia the first suit was dismissed on January 23, 2026 for being filed in the wrong court — a venue ruling, not a merits ruling — and DOJ refiled in the Northern District of Georgia, where the case is pending. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) has turned over redacted list-maintenance records but refuses to release Social Security digits, full birthdates and driver’s license numbers, arguing state law forbids it. The Georgia Senate has formally urged him to comply anyway.

Second, the rolls themselves. In July 2025 Raffensperger’s office announced an “audit” and sent cancellation notices to roughly 478,000 registrations flagged as inactive — the largest such action in state history, about six percent of the state’s registered voters — using National Change of Address data, returned undeliverable mail, five years without voter contact, and out-of-state move indicators. Voters had 40 days to respond. Black Voters Matter Fund and two Communications Workers of America affiliates sued in February 2026 under the NVRA’s public-inspection provision, saying the office released only a thin spreadsheet and never explained its methodology, so no one can tell whether eligible voters were wrongly removed. Georgia has a record here: more than 300,000 removals in 2019, and an ACLU review finding roughly 200,000 of a 2020 batch likely removed on flawed address data.

Third, the State Election Board. Its composition turned over twice in seven months, and its Republican majority keeps testing where its rulemaking power ends and the Secretary of State’s administrative authority begins — a boundary the Georgia Supreme Court drew in 2024 when it held the board may not adopt rules more restrictive than statute. In June the board passed a non-binding resolution encouraging counties to switch to hand-marked paper ballots, contradicting the Secretary of State’s guidance; the legislature mooted it days later. In July it adopted a rule claiming board access to the Secretary of State’s election-night tabulation center, over the Attorney General’s written opinion that it had no such authority — the chairman voted against it on that basis. Separately, the board holds statutory power to take over an underperforming county election board, a provision the Eleventh Circuit upheld in 2026, and it declined to use it against Fulton County in February “for now.”

Fourth, the certification calendar has a new pressure point. SB 3EX mandates an automatic hand recount whenever a statewide executive race listed first or second on the ballot is decided by less than 0.5%, and the hand count governs. Georgia’s governor’s race is exactly that kind of contest. Hand and machine counts always differ slightly; under this law that ordinary divergence becomes the official result and an argument.

Georgia’s Republican defenders of the 2020 count — Raffensperger, Kemp, Attorney General Chris Carr — all leave office in January 2027. None is on the November ballot. Continuity of that resistance is itself what voters are deciding.

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Legal Disruption Routes

State-Level Legal Disruption

Route	Legal mechanism	Sponsor / Who enacted it	Status as of September 2026	Legal challenge
Mass voter-roll purge	~478,000 registrations cancelled as “inactive” after a July 2025 “audit”; 40-day response window	SoS Raffensperger	Complete; methodology records still not released	Black Voters Matter Fund v. Raffensperger (N.D. Ga., filed 2/27/26) — NVRA public-inspection claim; state motion to dismiss filed 3/27/26
Automatic hand recount	SB 3EX — mandatory hand recount in statewide executive races listed first or second on the ballot and decided by under 0.5%; the hand count governs	Sen. Max Burns (R); signed 6/25/26	In effect for November 3. Applies to the governor’s race; does not apply to federal races	None filed. Senate Minority Whip Kim Jackson (D) warns it “could substantially delay the certification process”
Nonpartisan-izing metro offices	HB 369 — DA, county commission, tax commissioner and other county races made nonpartisan in Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett only	Passed 32–21 and 93–64; signed by Kemp 5/12/26	Takes effect 2028, not 2026	Two suits by sitting DAs (Boston 6/3/26; Austin-Gatson 8/28/26) — Georgia’s Uniformity Clause, equal protection, and the Rejected Bills Clause
SEB access to tabulation center	State Election Board rule adopted 7/8/26	SEB Republican majority	Adopted over the AG’s written opinion that the board lacks authority	Chairman Fervier voted against on the AG’s advice; no suit filed yet
County election takeover power	2021 omnibus authorizes SEB to replace an underperforming county election board	SB 202 (2021)	Upheld by the 11th Circuit in 2026; SEB declined to use it against Fulton on 2/21/26	Legislators including Sen. Greg Dolezal (R) continue to press for a Fulton takeover
Senate pressure to release voter data	SR 563 urging the SoS to comply with DOJ’s demand	Georgia Senate	Adopted; non-binding	Raffensperger has not complied
Open Meetings Act violations	Rules adopted at a July 2024 meeting held without lawful notice or quorum	SEB members Johnston, Jeffares, King	Litigation active	American Oversight v. SEB — Georgia Court of Appeals reversed dismissal 10/29/25, holding the Open Meetings Act waives sovereign immunity; case proceeding in trial court
SB 202 restrictions	Drop-box limits and hours, mail-ballot ID numbers, food/water rule, out-of-precinct provisional limits	Gov. Kemp, 2021	In force	Core provisions upheld in federal litigation

Federal Actions Targeting This State

Action	Status as of September 2026	Who is resisting / cooperating
DOJ voter-data lawsuit	Live — and it is the outlier. DOJ sued in December 2025 in the Macon-based Middle District, demanding Georgia’s unredacted voter list as part of an “investigation into Georgia’s compliance with federal election law.” Dismissed 1/23/26 for improper venue — a procedural ruling that decided nothing about the merits. DOJ refiled in the Northern District of Georgia (1:26-cv-00485), where it is pending: briefing on DOJ’s motion to compel and the state’s motion to dismiss is complete, the original judge recused 6/15/26, and no new hearing date is set. Nationally DOJ has lost 23 of these suits and won none	Raffensperger refuses to release SSNs, full birthdates and license numbers, arguing DOJ exceeded its authority, lacked jurisdiction, and filed in the wrong court. The Georgia Senate (SR 563) urges compliance
USPS mail-ballot rule (EO 14399)	Blocked by the September 4 preliminary injunction covering November 3; the administration’s stay application is pending at the Supreme Court. The earlier June 25 injunction was vacated August 26 and is no longer operative	Georgia is neither a plaintiff nor an intervenor — it gets the injunction’s protection without having asked for it, and has no seat at the table if the posture changes
Federal agents / troops at polls	No confirmed deployment plan. The Joint Chiefs chairman states the Joint Force has no plans to send personnel to polls or to seize ballots, machines or election material; DHS has declined to rule out ICE presence near polling places and has not defined the “specific threat” standard it cites	Kemp’s office says the election will be run as in past years; the Republican nominee for governor says he expects a Guard presence. Georgia has no state law restricting federal agents at polling places
FBI seizure of Fulton County records	~700 boxes of 2020 ballots, envelopes, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls seized 1/28/26 under a sealed warrant. No charges reported; the underlying statute of limitations has run	Fulton complied, then sued for the records’ return (Pitts v. United States); the court denied the request. Three SEB members filed an amicus brief backing the federal position with no public board vote, drawing an Open Meetings Act complaint
SAVE America Act	Passed the U.S. House February 2026; stalled in the Senate, not law. A reconciliation workaround failed 48–50 on April 23, 2026	No Georgia proof-of-citizenship registration statute enacted or pending. See SAVE Act Primer

Redistricting

Georgia’s congressional and legislative maps were drawn in a court-ordered 2023 special session, after U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones found the 2021 maps diluted Black voting strength and ordered an additional majority-Black congressional district in west metro Atlanta plus seven additional majority-Black legislative districts. Those maps are in effect for November 3, 2026.

Louisiana v. Callais (April 29, 2026) held race-conscious redistricting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, and Georgia was named among the states now free to redraw without that constraint. Kemp, who called the ruling one that “restores fairness to our redistricting process,” convened a June special session to redraw congressional and legislative lines for 2028 — which would have made Georgia the first state to apply Callais to its own legislature. Speaker Jon Burns notified him hours before the session opened that the House would not take redistricting up at all, and it ended with no new maps. Five of Georgia’s 14 U.S. House members are Black; all five are Democrats. The question is deferred, not settled — Kemp is term-limited, and November decides who resumes it.

Note the contested premise. Kemp said “Callais requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle.” State Rep. Saira Draper (D), an election lawyer, called that reading wrong: a federal court found the 2021 maps racially discriminatory under the prior understanding of the VRA, and whether that analysis survives Callais is an open question rather than a settled command.

The larger consequence is local. Roughly two-thirds of historical vote-dilution cases involved county commissions, school boards, city councils and at-large election systems — the bodies Section 2 no longer protects, and where Black Georgians won representation through decades of Section 2 litigation. Those changes arrive slowly and without headlines: an at-large system replacing districts on a county commission draws far less attention than a congressional map, and there is now no federal remedy for it. HB 369 — which converts DA and county commission races to nonpartisan contests in Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett from 2028 — is a separate state law rather than a Callais consequence, but it works on that same local layer, and the DAs suing over it note that all five counties are Democratic-leaning with large Black populations and all five have Black women serving as district attorney.

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Officials in Key Positions

Georgia turns over the governorship, the Secretary of State’s office and the Attorney General’s office in January 2027. Every official in this section is serving a final term.

Secretary of State

SourceGeorgia Recorder, January 23, 2026; AJC, March 1, 2026; WABE, June 16, 2026Name: Brad Raffensperger (R), in office since 2019 — term ends January 2027; ran for governor in 2026 rather than for reelection and did not win the nomination Election-denier status: No — certified and defended the 2020 results DOJ voter roll cooperation: Refusing. Has provided redacted list-maintenance records but withholds SSNs, full birthdates and license numbers, citing Georgia law; is litigating DOJ’s refiled suit and argued the original was filed in the wrong court, exceeded DOJ’s authority, and failed on jurisdiction Key documented action: Refused Trump’s January 2021 request to “find 11,780 votes.” In July 2025 announced the cancellation of ~478,000 “inactive” registrations, now the subject of an NVRA records suit — the same official is the state’s principal shield against federal data demands and the author of its largest purge On the November ballot to succeed him: Tim Fleming (R), a former Kemp chief of staff and deputy secretary of state, v. Penny Brown Reynolds (D). Gabriel Sterling, the deputy who publicly refuted 2020 fraud claims, finished fourth in the Republican primary

Governor

SourceGeorgia Recorder, May 13, 2026; 11Alive, August 28, 2026Name: Brian Kemp (R) — term-limited, leaves office January 2027 Key stance on election issues: Resisted 2020 pressure to overturn results. Signed SB 202 (2021), HB 369 and SB 3EX (2026). Called the June special session that both defused the tabulation crisis and sought post-Callais redistricting; his own party’s House Speaker refused the redistricting half Federal overreach cooperation: Has not joined the states suing over the USPS rule. On federal agents at polls, his office says the state’s approach is unchanged from past elections. Kemp deployed 1,500 National Guard troops in Atlanta during 2020 unrest; they were never assigned to polling places On the November ballot to succeed him: Rick Jackson (R) v. Keisha Lance Bottoms (D), former mayor of Atlanta

Attorney General

SourceGeorgia Recorder, July 8, 2026; The Guardian, October 24, 2025Name: Chris Carr (R) — in office through January 2027; ran for governor in 2026 rather than for reelection. Not term-limited — Georgia imposes no term limit on the Attorney General Voting rights defender: Mixed, with two documented instances of restraint against his own party’s board — his office advised the State Election Board in a May 12, 2026 letter that it lacked authority to adopt the tabulation-center rule, and it declined to defend individual board members in the American Oversight Open Meetings Act litigation, leaving them to fund their own defense Key documented action relevant to elections: Sided with Raffensperger in rejecting challenges to the 2020 results; defended the state in the federal SB 202 litigation

State Election Board

Five members: one chair appointed by the General Assembly, one each by the state House and Senate, and one each by the state political parties. Composition changed materially since the last revision of this playbook: Salleigh Grubbs replaced Rick Jeffares in December 2025, and Carolyn Roddy replaced Janice Johnston in June 2026. Any playbook naming Jeffares or Johnston as sitting members is out of date.

Member	Seat	Election-denier status	Key documented action
John Fervier	Chair	No	Voted against the tabulation-center access rule, citing the Attorney General’s opinion: “I always follow the advice of the attorney general, since they’re the ones who represent us.” Publicly dismissed calls for a Fulton County takeover
Janelle King	R (House appointee)	Yes — has amplified election-fraud claims	Vice chair since June 2026; sponsored the June 2026 resolution encouraging counties to switch to hand-marked paper ballots against SoS guidance; joined the unvoted Fulton amicus brief
Salleigh Grubbs	R (Lt. Gov. appointee)	Yes — Georgia GOP first vice chair, former Cobb GOP chair, “election integrity” activist	Appointed December 2025 by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Ran a GoFundMe for Johnston’s legal defense before joining the board; joined the unvoted Fulton amicus brief; open to a Fulton takeover pending DOJ’s findings
Carolyn Roddy	R	Not established	Appointed June 2026 after losing a Republican primary for the Public Service Commission. Sponsored the rule claiming board access to the Secretary of State’s election-night tabulation center
Sara Tindall Ghazal	D	No	Sole Democratic appointee. Warned that a mid-cycle switch to hand-marked ballots risked issuing wrong ballot styles in large counties, which “can throw out the entire election” for district races

Sources: Georgia Recorder 6/4/26, 7/8/26; AJC 12/22/25; The Current 2/21/26; American Oversight 4/14/26 and 10/29/25; WABE 4/20/26.

U.S. Senators

No Senate passage vote on the SAVE America Act has occurred, so neither senator has a vote to attribute.

Senator	Party	SAVE Act position	Voter roll stance	2026 status
Jon Ossoff	D	Opposed	Opposes DOJ voter roll demands	On the November 3 ballot, facing Rep. Mike Collins (R), who won the June runoff after a Trump endorsement over Kemp-backed Derek Dooley
Raphael Warnock	D	Opposed	Opposes DOJ voter roll demands	Not on the 2026 ballot. Condemned Kemp’s post-Callais redistricting call in May 2026

Key U.S. House Members

Sanford Bishop (GA-2, D) — long-serving voting rights defender. Rick Allen (GA-12, R) — voted to object to the 2020 certification. Mike Collins (GA-10, R) — the Senate nominee; first took office in 2023 and so cast no vote on the 2021 certification.

State Legislature Majority Leadership

Jon Burns, House Speaker (R) — refused Kemp’s June 2026 call to redraw maps, telling him by letter hours before the special session that the House would not consider redistricting at all; SB 202 supporter. Burt Jones, Lt. Governor and Senate President (R) — appointed Grubbs to the SEB; signed a false slate of 2020 presidential electors and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Georgia election interference case; lost the 2026 gubernatorial primary runoff. Max Burns, State Senator (R) — author of SB 3EX. Harold Jones, Senate Minority Leader (D) — sponsor of the proposed Henry McNeal Turner Voting Rights Act.

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Official Statements on Election Integrity

Statements Indicating Threat

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Rick Jackson, Republican nominee for Governor — August 13, 2026

Told a supporter at a Columbus rally that he expects the National Guard to be part of Georgia’s Election Day landscape.

SourceAtlanta Journal-Constitution (audio obtained), via 11Alive, August 28, 2026 Evidence tier: Credibly Reported Context: Candidate rhetoric, not state policy, and it was said to a supporter who opened by asserting that “the Democrats are going to cheat.” No deployment has been announced, requested or authorized. Deploying the Guard within Georgia is the sitting governor’s call, and Kemp’s office says the state is “approaching this upcoming election the exact same way we have in the past”; the 1,500 Guard troops he deployed in Atlanta in 2020 were never assigned to polling places. Treat this as a statement about intent should the speaker win, not as a description of November.

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Georgia Senate, SR 563 — 2026 session

A resolution urging the Secretary of State to comply with the Justice Department’s request to produce the state’s voter registration list.

SourceBallotpedia, 2026 Mid-Year Election Policy Report, August 27, 2026 Evidence tier: Documented Context: Non-binding, but the legislature pressing its own chief election official to release data he says state law forbids him to release — running in parallel with DOJ’s refiled suit, and notable because it is the state’s own legislature, not the federal government, applying the pressure.

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Greg Dolezal, State Senator (R) — February 2026

“It’s my personal opinion it’s past time for the state to take over Fulton County elections until they prove that they’re capable of adjudicating our elections in Georgia.”

SourceGeorgia Recorder, February 11, 2026 Evidence tier: Documented Context: Said on the Senate floor as the State Election Board met, and amplified by Trump on social media. Under the 2021 omnibus the board does hold takeover power over an underperforming county board, and the Eleventh Circuit upheld that provision in 2026. The board declined to act on February 21 and its chairman has publicly dismissed the calls; the power remains available.

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Statements Indicating Defense of Fair Elections

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Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State — January 2026 court filing

There is “no basis to think that Georgia is not complying with” federal list-maintenance requirements, and DOJ “does not need Georgia voter [personal identifying information] to ascertain that fact.”

SourceGeorgia Recorder, January 23, 2026 Evidence tier: Documented Context: Georgia’s position in the DOJ voter-data litigation, maintained through the refiled suit and against pressure from his own party’s legislature. He has said repeatedly that releasing the data would violate state law.

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John Fervier, State Election Board Chair — July 8, 2026

“The attorney general does not believe that it is statutorily our ability to do this, and I always follow the advice of the attorney general, since they’re the ones who represent us.”

SourceGeorgia Recorder, July 8, 2026 Evidence tier: Documented Context: Explaining his vote against the rule claiming board access to the Secretary of State’s election-night tabulation center. The rule passed anyway. The statement is useful because it establishes on the record that the board acted against its own counsel’s advice.

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Step-by-Step Defense Playbook

For Every Voter in Georgia

1. Register or verify your registration now

→ https://registertovote.sos.ga.gov/ → Registration deadline: Monday, October 5, 2026 — online, in person, or postmarked by that date → Same-day registration: No. Georgia has none. Miss October 5 and you cannot vote on November 3. → Georgia cancelled roughly 478,000 registrations in 2025. Check your status even if you voted recently, and even if you never moved — the purge used change-of-address data, returned mail, and five years without contact. Verify at https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/

1. Know your ID requirements

→ See: Georgia Voting Rights Guide → ID at the polls: Georgia driver’s license (valid even if expired), a state or federal photo ID, a free Georgia voter ID card, a U.S. passport, a valid government employee photo ID, a valid U.S. military ID, or a valid tribal photo ID → On a mail-ballot application: your Georgia driver’s license number, your state ID number, or the last four digits of your SSN — and if you use the SSN or have none of these, a copy of an acceptable photo ID → On the mail-ballot return envelope: your driver’s license number or state ID number; if you have neither, enclose a copy of an acceptable photo ID. Georgia verifies mail ballots by these ID numbers rather than by signature match → Free voter ID from your county registrar’s office or any Georgia DDS office. Get it before October if you need one.

1. If you plan to vote by mail:

→ Request deadline: Friday, October 23, 2026 — the second Friday before Election Day. Requests opened August 17. → Return deadline: received by 7:00 PM on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Georgia counts by receipt, not postmark. A ballot still in the mail on Election Day does not count. → Drop boxes exist but close early. Every county has at least one, capped at the lesser of one per 100,000 active registered voters or the number of advance voting sites. They sit inside advance voting locations and are available only during advance voting days and hours — which means they close when early voting ends on Friday, October 30. There are no drop boxes available during the final four days before the election. After October 30, hand-deliver to your county registrar’s office or vote in person instead. → Request early and return early. A federal court has blocked the USPS mail-ballot rule for this election, but the administration’s stay application is pending at the Supreme Court and that could change. Hand-delivery bypasses USPS entirely, and is the advice that holds whichever way the Court rules. → Track your ballot: https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/ → If your mail ballot is rejected, you can fix it — but only until Friday, November 6, 2026 (the third day after the election). The county must notify you. Watch for that notice and act immediately; the window is three days, not three weeks. → See: USPS Mail Ballot Interference Guide

1. Know your early voting window

→ In-person early voting: Tuesday, October 13 – Friday, October 30, 2026. (The statutory period starts the fourth Monday before the election, but October 12 is a state holiday, so mandatory voting begins the 13th; some counties may open on the 12th.) → Weekday hours: at minimum 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM; counties may extend to 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM → Mandatory Saturdays: October 17 and October 24, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM → Optional Sundays: October 18 and October 25 — at county discretion, so check. Advocate for Sunday hours locally if your county does not offer them → You may vote at any early-voting site in your county — pick the shortest line → Locations and hours: https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/

1. Know your polling place

→ Lookup: https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/ → On Election Day you must vote at your assigned precinct. This is the single most common way a Georgia vote gets lost: an out-of-precinct provisional ballot counts only if it is cast after 5:00 PM and you sign a statement that you could not reach your home precinct in time. Before 5:00 PM, it does not count at all. Confirm your precinct before November 3. → Election Day polls: 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM. If you are in line at 7:00 PM, stay in line — you are entitled to vote.

1. What to expect at the machines

→ Georgia uses its existing ballot-marking devices in November. SB 3EX delayed the QR-code ban to 2028, so there is no mid-cycle equipment switch — reports that counties would hand-mark or hand-count ballots this fall are out of date. → If machines are down or lines are excessively long, ask for a provisional ballot and call 866-OUR-VOTE before you leave. → SB 202’s food and water rule applies to partisan distribution within 150 feet of the polling building or 25 feet of the line; poll officers may provide water.

1. If anything goes wrong, get a provisional ballot rather than leaving

→ Under O.C.G.A. § 21-2-418 you may cast one if your eligibility is questioned or you lack acceptable ID. → If you cast it for lack of photo ID, you must present ID to your county registrar by Friday, November 6, 2026 — in person, by email, or by fax. Otherwise it is not counted. → If you cast it for any other reason, the county determines your eligibility within three days and you need do nothing.

1. Save 866-OUR-VOTE (English) and 888-VE-Y-VOTA (Spanish) in your phone now, with the numbers in Key Contacts below.

For Election Workers and Poll Watchers

1. Know 18 U.S.C. § 592. Print it. Carry it. Armed federal troops at a polling place is a federal crime. Document it; call 866-OUR-VOTE immediately. Note the limits of what is known: the military says it has no plans to send personnel to polls, DHS refuses to rule out ICE presence, and no deployment has been announced. Georgia has no state law of its own restricting federal agents at polling places, so § 592 and general state trespass and electioneering rules are the tools available. See: Federal Forces at Polling Sites Guide

1. Document every irregularity — date, time, location, description, witnesses, photos where legal. Georgia law bars photography inside the enclosed space of a polling place while voters are present.

1. Every challenged voter gets a provisional ballot — under O.C.G.A. § 21-2-418, any voter whose eligibility is challenged has the right to cast one. Never turn a voter away without offering one, and tell them the November 6 cure deadline out loud.

1. Watch the out-of-precinct clock. Before 5:00 PM, a voter in the wrong precinct should be redirected to the correct one — an out-of-precinct provisional cast before 5:00 PM will not be counted. After 5:00 PM it counts, with a signed statement. Knowing which side of 5:00 PM you are on is the difference between a counted ballot and a void one.

1. Attend county certification meetings — they are public, and the calendar is under “For Lawyers” below. Record them.

1. The new hand-recount trigger is a certification pressure point. Under SB 3EX, a statewide executive race listed first or second on the ballot and decided by under 0.5% triggers an automatic hand recount, and the hand count governs. The governor’s race qualifies; the U.S. Senate race, being federal, does not. Expect discrepancies between the hand and machine totals, and expect them to be called fraud. They are the ordinary error rate of manual counting — Fulton’s 2020 hand count of a single contest required roughly 275 two-person teams over four to five days. Document the process, not the argument.

1. Certification refusals: if your county board delays or refuses certification, call the SoS office and 866-OUR-VOTE immediately. Georgia courts hold certification to be a ministerial duty, and any recount or recanvass must be completed before certification, not after it.

For Organizers and Advocacy Groups

1. Register voters now — the deadline is October 5, 2026, with no same-day backstop. Prioritize re-registration outreach to voters swept up in the 2025 cancellation of ~478,000 records; many will not know they were removed.

1. Train and deploy election observers in the highest-risk counties: Fulton (FBI seizure of 2020 records; standing legislative calls for a state takeover of its elections), DeKalb, Clayton, Gwinnett and Cobb (all five targeted by HB 369), and rural counties with thin polling infrastructure.

1. Push counties to adopt the optional Sunday voting days — October 18 and 25 are available at county discretion, and more than 100 Georgia counties have historically never offered Sunday voting. This is a concrete, winnable local ask with a deadline.

1. Build a rapid-response legal team: ACLU Georgia (acluga.org), Common Cause Georgia (commoncause.org/georgia), Democracy Docket, the Lawyers’ Committee (866-OUR-VOTE), SPLC Georgia, the Fair Fight Action legal network, League of Women Voters of Georgia. The New Georgia Project dissolved in October 2025 after a record state ethics fine and is no longer a referral option — do not send volunteers or voters to it.

1. Watch the rolls, and the clock. The NVRA 90-day quiet period began August 5, 2026. Request county voter roll data now and compare it against any list activity after that date. Any systematic removal program running now is presumptively unlawful.

1. Track voter challenges — mass challenges by private individuals remain available under Georgia law and are decided by county boards, often at sparsely attended meetings. Monitor county board agendas for challenge hearings and attend them.

1. Coordinate with: Fair Fight Action, Black Voters Matter, NAACP Georgia State Conference, Common Cause Georgia, League of Women Voters of Georgia.

For Lawyers

1. The NVRA 90-day quiet period is active now, not a future posture. It began August 5, 2026. Under § 8(c)(2)(A), any systematic program to remove ineligible voters between now and November 3 is presumptively unlawful and immediately actionable. Individualized removals on request, death or felony conviction remain permitted. Georgia’s 2025 purge is the obvious precedent for what a violation would look like.

1. Prepare emergency TRO templates for certification refusals, extended polling hours after equipment or staffing failures, armed federal presence at polls, improper mass voter challenges, out-of-precinct provisional misapplication, and hand-recount irregularities under SB 3EX.

1. Establish Election Day rapid-response protocols — on-call attorneys in Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb and Chatham. Have mandamus petitions ready: Georgia courts treat certification as ministerial, so a template should be filable within hours of a refusal. Candidates, the Secretary of State, and affected voters all have standing to seek an order compelling certification.

1. Watch the State Election Board’s authority boundary — it is the most likely source of a post-election legal fight. The Georgia Supreme Court held in 2024 that the SEB may not adopt rules more restrictive than statute; the Attorney General advised in May 2026 that it lacked authority for the tabulation-center rule and it adopted the rule anyway. The board also holds statutory county-takeover power, upheld by the Eleventh Circuit in 2026 and expressly left on the table as to Fulton. Test any post-election board action against both limits immediately.

1. Know the post-election timeline. The county deadline is a Monday, not a Friday — this is commonly misstated:

→ County certification: 5:00 PM Monday, November 9, 2026 (O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-493(k), 21-2-497). Returns transmit to the Secretary of State immediately. The date may be extended only if needed to complete a pre-certification audit. → State certification: 5:00 PM Friday, November 20, 2026 — the seventeenth day after the election (O.C.G.A. § 21-2-499(b)). → Any recount or recanvass must occur before certification (O.C.G.A. § 21-2-495). → Recount: a losing candidate may request one within a 0.5% margin. SB 3EX separately mandates an automatic hand recount in statewide executive races listed first or second on the ballot and decided by under 0.5%. → Contest period: within 5 days of certification. → Runoff, if any: Tuesday, December 1, 2026. County certification 5:00 PM December 7; state certification 5:00 PM December 18. Georgia requires a runoff in any non-presidential race where no candidate takes a majority — with a competitive Senate race and an open governorship, plan for this rather than treating it as remote.

For State Legislators (where defenders hold power)

1. Specify the 2028 voting system properly — the equipment committee’s recommendations must preserve accessible ballot-marking options for voters with disabilities and language-assistance needs, raised by advocates in September 2026 hearings. A voter should not have to prove a disability to use a marking device rather than a pen.

1. Pass the Henry McNeal Turner Voting Rights Act — the state-level VRA introduced February 2026 by Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones, which would codify in Georgia law protections Callais removed from federal law. It faces an uphill path in a Republican legislature, but it is the only vehicle that addresses the local-government vote-dilution gap.

1. Repeal the most restrictive SB 202 provisions — drop box hour and location limits (particularly the closure of all drop boxes after early voting ends), and the pre-5:00 PM out-of-precinct provisional rule, which voids ballots cast by eligible voters for an administrative reason.

1. Codify the ministerial certification duty and clarify the SB 3EX hand-recount procedure before it is used, including how discrepancies are resolved and documented.

1. Strengthen election worker protections — Georgia election workers have faced sustained threats since 2020.

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Key Contacts and Resources

Resource	Contact	Purpose
Election Protection (English)	866-OUR-VOTE	Report Election Day problems
Election Protection (Spanish)	888-VE-Y-VOTA	Spanish-language help
Georgia Secretary of State	sos.ga.gov · (404) 656-2881	Registration, polling places, ballots
Georgia Attorney General	law.georgia.gov · (404) 458-3600	Civil rights violations
ACLU Georgia	acluga.org	Legal assistance
Common Cause Georgia	commoncause.org/georgia	Voter protection, board monitoring
League of Women Voters of Georgia	lwvga.org	Voter education, poll monitoring
Georgia voter registration	registertovote.sos.ga.gov	Register or verify
My Voter Page (MVP)	mvp.sos.ga.gov	Registration status, ballot tracking, precinct and early voting sites, sample ballot
Fair Fight Action	fairfight.com	Voter protection and mobilization
Black Voters Matter	blackvotersmatterfund.org	Voter engagement; plaintiff in the purge-records suit
Democracy Docket	democracydocket.com	Election litigation tracker
Brennan Center	brennancenter.org	Voting rights research; Georgia certification guardrails

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Sources

1. Georgia Secretary of State, “November 3, 2026 General Election,” sos.ga.gov — registration, early voting and absentee deadlines (retrieved September 7, 2026).
2. Votebeat, “Supreme Court to decide fate of proposed mail-ballot rules,” 9/6/26; Brennan Center, “Federal Court Blocks USPS from Interfering with Mail Ballots,” 9/4/26.
3. Rep. Krishnamoorthi press release, 9/4/26; News From The States, “Election experts see few legal options for Trump to meddle with polling places,” 9/3/26.
4. UW State Democracy Research Initiative, “Tracker: DOJ Lawsuits Seeking States’ Sensitive Voter Data,” 9/4/26; Georgia Recorder, “Federal judge tosses out DOJ lawsuit seeking sensitive voter data in Georgia” and “Raffensperger rebuffs rising pressure to send voter data to feds,” both 1/23/26.
5. AJC, “Gwinnett DA files lawsuit in fight over nonpartisan voting law,” 8/29/26; Democracy Docket, “Georgia law targeting Democratic counties draws lawsuit over ‘political redlining,'” 6/3/26; Axios Atlanta, “DAs will challenge bill that makes their offices nonpartisan,” 5/15/26.
6. 11Alive, “Rumblings of National Guard presence at Georgia’s 2026 election,” 8/28/26.
7. WABE, “Georgia legislature closes out special session with bill to delay ban on QR code ballots,” 6/23/26; PBS NewsHour/AP, “Georgia Republican legislative leaders reject governor’s call for 2028 redistricting,” 6/17/26; The Current, “Georgia lawmakers plan to redraw district lines,” 6/13/26.
8. Ballotpedia, “State of Election Policy Legislation 2026 Mid-Year Report,” 8/27/26 (SB 3EX, HB 369, SR 563); Ballotpedia, “Election policy in Georgia.”
9. Georgia Recorder, “State Election Board passes resolution allowing counties to switch to hand-marked ballots” and Johnston resignation, 6/4/26; “Election panel adopts rule to gain access to election night ‘bunker,'” 7/8/26; “Lawmakers praise, rebuke affidavit used to justify Fulton County election raid,” 2/11/26.
10. The Current, “Georgia State Election Board declines to seize control of Fulton County elections, for now,” 2/21/26; American Oversight, Open Meetings Act appeal win 10/29/25 and SEB amicus letter 4/14/26.
11. Democracy Docket, “Georgia Voter Roll Purge Records Request Challenge” case page, 2/27/26; AJC, “Voting rights group sues Raffensperger over voter cancellation documents,” 3/1/26.
12. ABC News on Louisiana v. Callais, 4/29/26; Stateline, “Supreme Court voting rights ruling set to reshape local power,” 5/4/26; Brennan Center, “Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act at the Supreme Court.”
13. Brennan Center, “Georgia Election Certification Processes and Guardrails” (Nov 9 and Nov 20, 2026 dates); NCSL, “Election Certification Deadlines”; O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-493(k), 21-2-497, 21-2-499(b), 21-2-495.
14. GPB, “What Does Georgia’s New Voting Law SB 202 Do?”; Fulton County, “SB 202 Changes”; O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-382 (drop boxes), 21-2-385 (advance voting), 21-2-417 (voter ID), 21-2-418 (provisional ballots).
15. AP, “Voter turnout group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams is closing,” 10/16/25.
16. CBS News and POLITICO, Georgia U.S. Senate Republican runoff results, 6/16–17/26; WABE, Secretary of State runoff results, 6/16/26.
17. 18 U.S.C. § 592 (armed federal troops at polls); NVRA § 8(c)(2)(A) (90-day quiet period).

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Factual correction requests: If you believe information in this playbook is incorrect, please contact factcheck@patriot.university with the specific claim and any supporting documentation. We review all submissions and correct verified errors promptly.

Last Updated: September 7, 2026 Research method: Web research via Brennan Center, Democracy Docket, Votebeat, Georgia Recorder, NCSL and the Georgia Secretary of State. Evidence tiers applied per PU standards.

Corrections

Correction [2026-09-08]: Stated that Attorney General Chris Carr was term-limited. Georgia’s Attorney General is not subject to term limits; Carr declined to seek reelection in 2026 and ran unsuccessfully for governor instead. He remains the sitting Attorney General. Source: https://ballotpedia.org/Chris_Carr.

Correction [2026-09-08]: Stated that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was running for reelection in 2026 against election-denier challengers. Raffensperger ran for governor and did not win the nomination; his term ends January 2027. Source: https://www.ajc.com/.

Correction [2026-09-08]: Gave Georgia’s county certification deadline as ‘the 2nd Friday following the election’. Certification is due 5:00 PM Monday, November 9, 2026 under O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-493(k) and 21-2-497 — four days earlier than the stated rule. The state deadline is the seventeenth day (November 20), not the ‘third Friday’; that rule produced the right date only by coincidence this cycle. Counsel staffing a certification-refusal response from the prior text would have prepared for the wrong date. Source: https://www.brennancenter.org/; https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/election-results-canvass-and-certification-deadlines.