MACON, Ga. — As state leaders continue to propose possible laws, one Senate bill is centered around adding extra steps to the absentee ballot process.
"Requiring a photo ID to be mailed in with an absentee ballot, of course that has some validity, because you could say well, if a person voting in person has to show it, then why not ask the mail-in voter to show it?" said Representative Dale Washburn in a previous interview.
Senate Bill 29 would require voters to submit a photo ID when applying for an absentee ballot and a copy of that same ID when returning it. Mike Kaplan with the Macon-Bibb Board of Elections says there's currently no ID requirement for these ballots.
"When the application comes in, we do a signature match and then when the ballot itself is returned, we then do another signature match," says Kaplan.
Kaplan says with the current system, absentee ballots do not take long to get through, but that could change depending on the process outlined in the final bill.
"The question is are they going to alleviate the signature verification and only use the ID or are they going to add a step and use the signature verification along with the ID? I'm not sure how that's going to work," he says.
As of now, there is more than one proposed bill in the senate that could restructure Georgia elections. Democrat Representative James Beverly said in a previous interview that House Democrats will fight against any drastic changes presented by the Republicans.
Kaplan says regardless of what bills are passed, they will make sure to follow the new laws.
"We at the board of elections and all board of elections are policy followers, we follow laws that are passed by the state legislator," he says.