Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday he did not believe municipal elections in Newton County or elsewhere in the state this year would be affected by the federal lawsuit filed to block Georgia’s new voting law.

“The municipal elections will happen in the fall and I think this will be addressed (before then),” Raffensperger said in a phone interview. “The courts understand that time is of the essence.”

The U.S. Justice Department sued the state of Georgia Friday, June 25, over passage of the election reform law, Senate Bill 202, that the General Assembly and Gov. Brian Kemp approved in March.

The complaint asks a court to prohibit Georgia from enforcing the new law.

Justice officials filed the lawsuit against Raffensperger, the State Election Board and the state of Georgia because of parts of the bill it says violates the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Department officials claim it intentionally discriminates against Black voters, the Capitol Beat News Service reported.

Among Senate Bill 202’s mandates are requiring IDs rather than using a signature-match verification process for absentee ballots; restrictions on the location of ballot drop boxes; and prohibiting non-poll workers from handing out food and drinks within 150 feet of voters standing in line, the news service reported.

Critics have accused Republicans of passing the law in an effort to reverse the high voter turnout last November some credited for President Joe Biden’s victory.

Raffensperger did not say if he was surprised by the lawsuit.

“We have no control over what the federal government does or doesn’t do,” he said in a phone interview Friday. “So, we’ll just deal with what the facts are and we intend to fully state the facts.

“(Senate Bill 202 is) constitutional and it’s good policy, so we feel we’ll win at the end of the day,” he said. “We’ve fought the federal government before and we’ll do that again.”

Raffensperger said potential 2022 Democratic nominee for governor Stacey Abrams “has been working overtime through her propaganda machine” to discredit the new law.

He noted the estimates some have given of the amount of revenue private businesses and the state lost from Major League Baseball moving this season’s All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver, Colorado, in response to the legislation.

“She’s already cost Georgia $100 million by her disinformation and misinformation campaign about what the bill did or didn’t do and we lost the All-Star Game,” he said.

The complaint alleges that much of Senate Bill 202 was adopted “with the purpose of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race.”

It states that “the cumulative and discriminatory effect of these laws — particularly on Black voters — was known to lawmakers and that lawmakers adopted the law despite this.”

The lawsuit challenges a part of the law that bans government entities from distributing unsolicited absentee ballot applications; the imposition of “costly and onerous fines on civic organizations, churches and advocacy groups that distribute follow-up absentee ballot applications”; shortening of the deadline to request absentee ballots to 11 days before Election Day, and other provisions.

Acting U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine of the Northern District of Georgia said, “One of the fundamental rights of our democracy is the right to vote.”

“That right should be protected for every citizen of our district, regardless of race,” Erskine said. “The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is committed to protecting the rights of all Americans to vote.”     

Attorney General Merrick Garland in a news release, “The right of all eligible citizens to vote is the central pillar of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow.

“This lawsuit is the first step of many we are taking to ensure that all eligible voters can cast a vote; that all lawful votes are counted; and that every voter has access to accurate information.”