Here's the law:
https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-21-elections/ga-code-sect-21-2-414/
(a) No person shall solicit votes in any manner or by any means or method, nor shall any person distribute or display any campaign material, nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector, nor shall any person solicit signatures for any petition, nor shall any person, other than election officials discharging their duties, establish or set up any tables or booths on any day in which ballots are being cast:
(1) Within 150 feet of the outer edge of any building within which a polling place is established;
(2) Within any polling place; or
(3) Within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place.
That carve-out for "election officials discharging their duties" applies only to "establish or set up any tables or booths".
Reformatting to clarify:
No person shall solicit votes in any manner or by any means or method,
nor shall any person distribute or display any campaign material,
nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector,
nor shall any person solicit signatures for any petition,
nor shall any person,
other than election officials discharging their duties <emphasis mine, this is the carve-out for the description of the action which follows>, establish or set up any tables or booths
on any day in which ballots are being cast: (then go on to (1) (2) (3) describing where it applies).
If the intent had been for "other than election officials discharging their duties" to apply to ALL of the actions to which the law applies, then those words should have been put up at the beginning and the words "shall any person" taken out of the individual line items (other than one exception) - and it should read something like this:
(a) No person shall solicit votes in any manner or by any means or method, nor shall any person, other than election officials discharging their duties, distribute or display any campaign material, nor give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector, nor solicit signatures for any petition, nor establish or set up any tables or booths on any day in which ballots are being cast:
But that's not what they did.
And I understand that "common interpretation" can differ from what's actually written. The "common interpretation" may be that election officials can hand out water (for example) within the restricted area, because nobody's going to complain and arrest them for doing that. But it isn't the way the law is written.
(I dealt with analogous situations in certain Ontario laws all the time. If you strictly complied with the Occupational Health and Safety Act as-written, not allowing for "common interpretations", you could never use a power tool in a workplace, and nothing would ever get built.)
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