ATLANTA — All Voting is Local Georgia State Campaign Manager Lana Goitia Paz issued the following statement in response to the Georgia legislature passing Senate Bill 441, which expands the powers of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into election-related cases:

ATLANTA — All Voting is Local Georgia State Director Kristin Nabers issued the following statement in response to House Bill 1464, a wide-ranging anti-voter bill introduced Wednesday that would allow for more sham election reviews, cut grant funding that is necessary to run elections well, and give Georgia’s Bureau of Investigation the power to investigate elections:

Critics say it’s the voting law that’s political and will disproportionately affect communities of color. Kemp’s news conference was trying to deflect from that, as the governor gears up for next year’s election to try to win a second term, said Aklima Khondoker, state director of the voting rights group, All Voting is Local.

“He’s pivoting away from all of the malicious things that we understand that this bill represents to people of color in Georgia,” she said.

“It’s not enough to talk the talk; you have to walk the walk,” says Aklima Khondoker, Georgia State Director for All Voting is Local, a national voting rights group. “Call for a repeal of this bill. Call for a ban of all of these provisions. Do that publicly. With their voice it’s going to be incredibly loud and hard to ignore when those corporations speak.”

Aklima Khondoker, All Voting is Local Georgia State Director, and Stephanie Jackson Ali, All Voting is Local Georgia Campaign Manger, discuss why Georgia's SB 202 is harmful and anti-voter.

Aklima Khondoker, Georgia state director of All Voting is Local, a voting rights group, said she has heard from election officials that some are afraid to criticize a measure that effectively allows state lawmakers to remove them from their jobs.

The law, she said, is “holding our counties hostage.”