The State Election Board is investigating how eight Georgia counties handle voter eligibility challenges, but election officials in many of those counties say they have never received any guidance from the state on the matter.
The board tapped Executive Director Mike Coan last month to investigate the management of voter challenges in Athens-Clarke, Bibb, Cobb, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett and Jackson counties. He’s to report back at Tuesday’s board meeting.
The board could issue guidance on how counties should handle voter challenges, but it has no authority to change a county’s ruling on a particular challenge, Gwinnett Elections Director Zach Manifold said.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger opted not use his office to investigate counties’ procedures for handling voter challenges. When asked about it, his spokesman, Robert Sinners, referred to Raffensperger’s descriptions of the board as “a mess.”
Sinners said Raffensperger also pointed to an opinion from the Georgia Attorney General’s office suggesting that the board appears to be exceeding its authority and its rule-making efforts could be conflicting with state laws.
Mass voter challenges have become a new front in the battle between partisan activists and local election boards. State laws passed in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election have empowered activists to contest an unlimited number of voters within the same county.
But a majority of challenges are rejected by county boards. Election officials often say the challenges lack credible evidence to prove that the challenged voter moved to a new state or jurisdiction, died or broke some other rule making them ineligible to vote.
Coan said his preliminary findings suggest that some county boards are concerned they may get sued if certain challenges are upheld.
That belief that could stem from a 2020 federal lawsuit that alleged the DeKalb Elections Board illegally removed more than 50 voters in 2018 after their residency was challenged. The county settled the lawsuit, reinstating the eligibility of all voters who had been purged.
After settling, DeKalb issued new policies for considering voter challenges, using guidance from the National Voter Registration Act. Under the law, a voter’s registration can be canceled if that voter provides written confirmation that they have moved. Otherwise, there’s a yearslong process for removing outdated voter registrations associated with individuals who haven’t participated in recent elections. Last year, election officials purged 189,000 inactive Georgia voters.
“Most of the voter policies I’ve seen are based off of that NVRA (National Voter Registration Act) settlement that DeKalb had, and that’s kind of the genesis of how everybody developed their policies,” Manifold said.
Bill Duffey, former State Election Board chairman, had said the board would provide guidance on voter challenge policies in 2024. But when he stepped down that promise went unfulfilled, Manifold said.
Manifold has asked for voter challenge guidance from the board for three years. Instead, at its last meeting the board called on its executive director to investigate election irregularities. Manifold said he is uncertain what the board can do or what it is looking for.
“I don’t know if it’s that they’ve gotten complaints and are trying to learn more about the process, because in a lot of ways, I don’t think they know a lot about voter challenges,” he said.
It is unclear how the board chose which counties it wanted to investigate. At least one of the eight counties — Athens-Clarke — received no voter challenges this year.
Over 350,000 voter challenges have been lodged since 2020, including 45,000 after July 1, after Senate Bill 189 went into effect. County election officials have rejected the vast majority of challenges, but they have done so without the guidance of the state board.
“The State Election Board has passed a bunch of rules, but the one rule they haven’t passed is anything related to voter challenges,” Manifold said.
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