Did georgia legislation change election laws in 2020

1. What happened in the state of Georgia after the 2020 election: a 2021 statutory overhaul

After the 2020 presidential contest and the high turnout it produced, Georgia’s Republican-majority legislature passed a 95–98 page omnibus bill, commonly called SB 202 or the “Election Integrity Act of 2021,” which Governor Brian Kemp signed into law in March 2021; that law made broad changes to voting procedures including new limits on absentee drop boxes, a photo‑ID requirement for absentee ballots, a ban on most mobile voting units outside declared disasters, expanded state authority over county election boards, and other administrative reforms ^{[1] [5] [6] [2]}.

2. What actually changed compared with 2020 practices: concrete examples

SB 202 limited where and how absentee ballot drop boxes can be deployed — for example, it set a cap of roughly one drop box per 100,000 registered voters or required placement inside election offices or voting locations rather than widely outdoors as in 2020, curbed mobile voting units used in Fulton County in 2020, shortened the absentee request window and added an ID requirement for mail ballots, and allowed poll workers to serve across county lines while giving the state board new power to replace county boards deemed underperforming ^{[7] [8] [9] [5] [2]}.

3. What changed in 2020 itself: rule adjustments and pandemic-era practices

The 2020 election year saw emergency and administrative shifts — most notably the introduction and heavy use of absentee ballot drop boxes and mobile voting to adapt to COVID‑19, and a State Election Board rule in August 2020 authorizing earlier processing of absentee ballots weeks before Election Day, among other procedural steps taken without legislative statutory overhaul ^{[1] [3] [2]}.

4. Who frames these changes one way or another — competing interpretations

Supporters of the 2021 law and allied organizations present SB 202 as mainstream reforms to “make it easy to vote but hard to cheat,” arguing the bill codifies and standardizes practices exposed by 2020’s unusual conditions ^{[8] [10]}. Opponents — including civil‑rights plaintiffs, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and other voting‑rights advocates — argue the law disproportionately burdens voters of color, enables mass challenges to voter eligibility, restricts drop boxes and assistance to voters in line, and centralizes power in ways that could be used for partisan advantage; those critics filed legal challenges soon after the law’s passage ^{[11] [12] [2]}.

5. Legal and civic fallout: litigation, public reaction and continuing reforms

Multiple lawsuits challenged SB 202’s provisions; a federal judge at one point declined a preliminary injunction against some criminal provisions and other parts of the law have seen litigation and public controversy, while the law also fueled national corporate and cultural backlash and spurred further election-related bills and tweaks in subsequent legislative sessions ^{[12] [8] [13]}. Meanwhile, federal and local actions years later — such as disputes over custody of 2020 ballots and records — reflect that the 2020 contest remains central to ongoing legal and political battles about elections administration ^{[14] [15]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of the available reporting

In sum, the Georgia state legislature did not pass the large, comprehensive statutory changes in 2020; most of the highly consequential legal changes were enacted in 2021 as a direct legislative response to the 2020 election and pandemic-era practices, while administrative rule changes and emergency measures in 2020 did alter how ballots were handled that year ^{[1] [3] [2]}. Reporting here draws on state and national coverage and legal summaries; it does not attempt to adjudicate partisan claims about motives or the precise effects of each provision beyond what plaintiffs, courts, and official texts have stated ^{[5] [11] [12]}.