ATLANTA— Just nine months after sponsoring Georgia’s controversial election reform bill, Ga. Sen. Butch Miller is looking to retract one section of the bill that mandates absentee ballot drop boxes.  

Miller, R–Gainesville, filed Senate Bill 325 Friday; it would ban absentee ballot drop boxes in Georgia, a service that was implemented and widely used during the pandemic in 2020.  

“Drop boxes were introduced as an emergency measure during the pandemic but many counties did not follow the security guidelines in place, such as the requirement for camera surveillance on every drop box,” said Miller, a candidate for Georgia’s lieutenant governor seat. “Moving forward, we can return to a pre-pandemic normal of voting in person. Removing drop boxes will help rebuild the trust that has been lost. Many see them as the weak link when it comes to securing our elections against fraud. For the small number of Georgians who need to vote absentee, that will remain as easy and accessible as it was before 2020.”

Nearly 130 of Georgia’s 159 counties used ballot drop boxes during the 2020 elections. Only 10 states — including Mississippi and Tennessee — did not have options for absentee ballot boxes for voters.  

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office did not compile a total of how many ballots were cast via drop box in 2020, according to an office staff member. 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Georgia Public Broadcasting obtained ballot transfer forms from election officials around the state leading up to the November 2020 election.

They found that in metro Atlanta’s four most populated counties, more than 305,000 out of 547,000 absentee voters deposited their ballots in drop boxes. A sample of 11 smaller counties across Georgia found 32% of absentee voters used drop boxes, according to the AJC and GPB study.  

Republicans cited security concerns for the use of ballot drop boxes and included heightened measures in the Election Integrity Act of 2021, known as SB 202, enacted in March. 

Provisions in the bill require all Georgia counties to have at least one drop box, allowing additional drop boxes per 100,000 registered voters. Drop boxes have to be located inside certain government buildings and inside locations where advance voting is taking place and must be under constant surveillance by an election official, law-enforcement official or licensed security guard.

Drop box ballots must be collected by two people at the end of each day and are only allowed to be collected during the facility’s operational hours.  

CNHI reached out to Miller for comment on his bill but he had yet to respond.