March 18, 2021
Washington, DC — Heritage Action for America, a national conservative grassroots organization, today announced an effort to strengthen Georgia’s election laws and restore voter confidence in the state, including a $600,000 TV ad buy, digital advertising, and a grassroots advocacy initiative.
“Fair and free elections are the bedrock of democracy, and every Georgian has the right to know their vote is secure,” said Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action. “After a year of challenges to its electoral system, restoring Georgians’ trust in elections should be the top priority of legislators. Every eligible voter deserves to have confidence in their election system and know their vote will be counted. That’s why Heritage Action is mobilizing Georgia’s grassroots to promote election safeguards, and we will keep working until every Georgian can trust that their vote is safe and their elections are fair.”
Immediately after the Georgia runoffs, Heritage Action began educating its established army of grassroots volunteers on election integrity best practices. At the beginning of March, Heritage Action activated those activists to work with their legislators and governor’s office to promote meaningful, common-sense election reforms. Heritage Action also today launched an ad campaign to support legislators working to secure elections, including an initial $600,000 in TV ads in Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah and $100,000 in digital advertising.
The campaign launched this week as part of Heritage Action’s nationwide election integrity campaign, focusing on eight states, including Georgia. Heritage Action made an initial investment of $10 million to promote election integrity legislation in these states, with a commitment to add further funding to accomplish its goals.
The initiative will promote legislation that follows The Heritage Foundation’s list of best practices for election integrity. Some of the top issues for Georgia include:
Verifying the accuracy of voter registration lists.
Protecting each Georgian’s vote by requiring photo ID for absentee voting.
Prohibiting private funding of election officials and government agencies, which can lead to partisan election offices and corruption.
Protect absentee ballots by banning automatic mailing of absentee ballots or absentee ballot request forms to all voters
Background: In 2020, Georgia saw issues in its elections including double voting, out-of-state voting, and illegal voting by felons, according to Georgia elections officials. In addition to its list of election-related best practices, The Heritage Foundation has also documented over one thousand incidents of criminal convictions for voter fraud at the Election Fraud Database.
Polling from McLaughlin & Associates shows an overwhelming number of Americans support election reforms like citizenship verification and photo ID requirements. Other polling shows high numbers of voters lack confidence in election fairness.