2020 Georgia Code
Title 21 - Elections
Chapter 2 - Elections and Primaries Generally
Article 11 - Preparation for and Conduct of Primaries and Elections
Part 3 - Precincts Using Voting Machines
§ 21-2-451. Execution of Voter's Certificate; Procedure Upon Qualification of Elector; Elector Unable to Sign Name; Voting Outside of Precinct of Residence; Registration Prerequisite to Voting

1. At every primary and election, each elector who desires to vote shall first execute a voter's certificate and hand the same to the poll officer in charge of the electors list. When an elector has been found entitled to vote, the poll officer who examined his or her voter's certificate shall sign his or her name or initials on the voter's certificate and shall, if the voter's signature is not readily legible, print such voter's name under his or her signature. As each elector is found to be qualified and votes, the poll officers shall check off the elector's name on the electors list and shall enter the number of the stub of the ballot issued to him or her, or his or her number in the order of admission to the voting machines, on the voter's certificate of such elector. As each elector votes, his or her name in the order of voting shall be recorded in the numbered list of voters provided for that purpose.
2. If any elector was unable to sign his or her name at the time of registration or, if having been able to sign his or her name when registered, he or she subsequently shall have become, through physical disability, unable to sign his or her name when he or she applies to vote, he or she shall establish his or her identity to the satisfaction of the poll officers; and in such case he or she shall not be required to sign a voter's certificate, but a certificate shall be prepared for him or her by a poll officer.
3. Except as provided in Code Sections 21-2-218 and 21-2-386, no person shall vote at any primary or election at any polling place outside the precinct in which such person resides, nor shall such person vote in the precinct in which such person resides unless such person has been registered as an elector and such person's name appears on the electors list of such precinct.

(Code 1933, § 34-1310, enacted by Ga. L. 1964, Ex. Sess., p. 26, § 1; Code 1933, § 34-1328, as redesignated by Ga. L. 1969, p. 308, § 7; Ga. L. 1982, p. 1512, § 5; Ga. L. 1994, p. 1443, § 8; Ga. L. 1998, p. 295, § 1; Ga. L. 2006, p. 888, § 8/HB 1435.)

- Penalty for voting by unqualified elector, § 21-2-571.

Cited in Rary v. Guess, 129 Ga. App. 102, 198 S.E.2d 879 (1973); Taggart v. Phillips, 242 Ga. 484, 249 S.E.2d 268 (1978).

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

All polling places must be open.

- Where a political party holds a primary in a county, the polling place in each and every election district (now precinct) must be opened. 1968 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 68-261.

- The General Assembly intended that no person could validly cast a ballot in the election district (now precinct) in which the person resides unless the person is registered in the district. 1968 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 68-220.

- The fact that this section required persons to vote only in the election district (now precinct) in which they reside should be construed to mean residence in that election district (now precinct) which the elector departed and to which the elector intends to return. 1968 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 68-367.

Business address, in and of itself, does not fulfill the residency requirements of this section and an otherwise qualified elector may vote in the election district (now precinct) containing the elector's business address only when the district (now precinct) also contains the elector's residence. 1968 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 68-293.

- In deciding upon the proper method for determining whether persons have voted within the past three years, it is important that absentee electors and regular electors be treated as similarly as possible despite the varying procedures. 1974 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 74-133.

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 26 Am. Jur. 2d, Elections, § 312.

- 29 C.J.S., Elections, §§ 70, 73, 75, 328.