Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has agreed to drop a requirement restricting the  ability of petitioners seeking to oust Waycross Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill, who is under fire for his role in delaying the investigation into the death of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick.

Georgia's Recall Petition Act contains a provision that people circulating a recall petition be eligible to vote in that election. A lawsuit was filed last week challenging that requirement as unconstitutional, and on Friday Raffensperger's office entered into a consent order agreeing not to enforce the provision.

The lawyer representing the plaintiffs—a Waycross pastor and another circuit resident, and a woman who lives in Henry County outside of Barnhill's circuit—said the case settled without any opposition filings by Raffensperger's office.

"It basically settled on the motions," said Atlanta solo Bryan Sells. "When the secretary of state's office read our brief and the cases we cited, they basically agreed with us that U.S. Supreme Court decisions had rendered the restrictions unconstitutional."

Sell said his clients and their supporters have already submitted more than 200 names to Raffensperger's office seeking permission to circulate the petitions, twice as many as required for the recall effort.

Sells said he expects the secretary to sign off on that effort shortly.

Once approved, petitioners will have 45 days to collect the signatures of at least 30% of the eligible voters in Barnhill's last election, which is about 22,000 registered voters.

The joint motion for a consent order, signed by Sells and the secretary of state's general counsel, C. Ryan Germany, said the litigants "have agreed that it is in the best interest of all parties that this lawsuit be resolved without further litigation. Moreover, the parties agree that the voter registration requirement is likely unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's decision in Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation … and subsequent cases."

"In 1999—ten years after the General Assembly adopted the voter-registration requirement at issue here—the Supreme Court addressed a nearly identical voter-registration requirement for initiative petition circulators in Buckley, and it concluded that the requirement imposed an unconstitutional burden on the plaintiffs' rights under the First Amendment," the motion said.

District Judge Leigh May of Georgia's Northern District Court signed the judgment Friday.

"The First Amendment right to free speech has served as the bedrock of freedom and democracy in the United States since its founding," said Raffensperger's communications manager Walter Jones via email.

"There is rightly a high bar in American society for restrictions of freedom of speech," he said. "Open political speech and lively debate have allowed America to grow and thrive into the vibrant democracy it is today."

Arbery was killed Feb. 23 in Glynn County after being chased at gunpoint by Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, who along with William "Roddie" Bryant faces murder charges.

The killing happened in Glynn County, which is not in Barnhill's circuit. But he involved himself the next day by advising the Glynn County Police Department that he didn't think there was any reason to arrest anyone for Arbery's death.

On Feb. 27, Glynn County DA Jackie Johnson recused because the elder McMichael had worked for her office, and the case was assigned to Barnhill.

More than a month later, Barnhill announced that he was going to recuse because of connections between Gregory McMichael and Barnhill's son, a lawyer in Johnson's office, and again told Glynn County police not to make any arrests. Barnhill recused on April 7, and the attorney general tapped Cobb County District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes to take over the case.

Last month, Carr asked the U.S Department of Justice and Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into Johnson and Barnhill's handling of the Arbery case.