The Fulton County Republican Party is suing the Fulton Commission for voting down GOP nominee to the county election board Jason Frazier, who has challenged the eligibility of thousands of registered voters.
The lawsuit filed Friday asks a superior court judge to order the Fulton Commission to appoint Frazier to one of the Republican Party’s two seats on the election board, which oversees voter registration, sets voting locations and certifies election results in the heavily Democratic county that includes the city of Atlanta.
“In a cynical act of partisanship, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners rejected the nomination. They did so because Frazier had sought to compel Fulton County to clean up its voter rolls,” the lawsuit states. “But instead of commending Frazier for his efforts, the Board of Commissioners punished him.”
The lawsuit alleges that the Fulton County Commission is required to approve Frazier because a county ordinance says the commission “shall” appoint two election board members each from the Republican and Democratic parties.
But Democrats who hold a majority on the Fulton Commission have said that they’re not required to approve an unsatisfactory Republican Party nominee to the election board, and the GOP could instead choose a different person.
“We ‘shall’ appoint them as soon as they put up someone that’s acceptable,” Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. said at a June 7 meeting. “The word ‘shall’ doesn’t control my vote. I control my vote. ... We have been elected to make the determination.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Frazier has challenged nearly 10,000 voter registrations under Georgia’s 2021 election voting law, which allows anyone to contest an unlimited number of other voters’ qualifications.
Allegations of bloated voter rolls and ineligible voters became a pressing issue among Republican election critics in the wake of Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, especially in heavily Democratic areas. Since then, they’ve filed challenges to tens of thousands of voters’ eligibility, in some cases forcing legitimate voters to defend their right to vote.
In Fulton, Frazier claimed those voters were ineligible based on address mismatches, nonresidential addresses and duplicate registrations. A separate analysis by the county of questionable addresses later verified many registrations of voters whose addresses turned out to be college dormitories, recently built apartments and mixed-use developments.
All Georgia voters must show a valid ID before they can cast a ballot.
The Fulton Commission unanimously approved the Republican Party’s other nominee to the election board, Michael Heekin, along with the Democratic Party’s two incumbent board members, Teresa Crawford and Aaron Johnson. Commissioners previously appointed a new election board chairwoman, Patrise Perkins-Hooker.
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