SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) – A conservative group said Friday it is contesting the eligibility of more than 364,000 voters in Georgia for election officials in each of the state’s 159 counties ahead of January’s second election that takes control of the United States Senate will determine.
Texas-based True the Vote said it is working with residents of Georgia statewide to meet challenges under a state law that allows any registered voter to challenge the eligibility of any other voter within the same county. It is up to the local election committees to determine whether these challenges are worthwhile.
Georgia Democratic Party executive director Scott Hogan called voters “blatant attempts to stifle the vote.” An American Civil Liberties Union attorney said they were violating federal law.
Georgia’s status as an electoral battleground was proven in November when Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992. Now standing GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler both run for second round elections. January 5th. If both lose to Democratic challenges John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the Democrats will take control of the Senate.
Lawsuits filed by allies of President Donald Trump after the November 3 election yielded no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Secretary of State for Georgia, has defended the election results. Still, many Republicans have refused to accept the outcome and have sought to cast doubt on the fairness of the Senate layoffs.
“The ongoing November election debates across the country have made Americans intensively focused on improving the integrity of our elections and restoring voters’ faith,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote. in a statement Friday. “Today we assisted concerned Georgia voters by taking a stand for the sanctity of every legal vote.”
The group said voters are being challenged based on questions about where they live based on change of address data obtained from the US Postal Service.
Election officials in Cobb County on Friday dismissed complaints filed by Jason Shepherd, the county Republican chairman, and a local GOP activist seeking to question the registration of more than 46,000 voters. The election committee voted unanimously, the Marietta Daily Journal reported.
A similar challenge to more than 4,000 voters in Muscogee County, including Columbus, was found to be a likely cause Wednesday by county election officials, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. reported. That means that anyone on the disputed list who tries to vote must prove their eligibility, as will anyone challenged who sent out absentee ballots that have yet to be opened.
State law says that counties cannot certify their ballot totals until they have decided all the challenges for people who have voted.
A similar challenge filed over the summer in Fulton County, including Atlanta, was rejected by a Superior Court judge. The judge declined to order the county election officials to reconsider in a brief ruling that federal electoral law took precedence over Georgian law.
The Georgia ACLU sent a letter to county election officials across Georgia urging them to reject the challenges, which the group says violates a federal law that prohibits any systematic removal of voters from the lists less than 90 days before prohibits an election.
Not only are the elections in Georgia less than three weeks ago, but the early personal vote in the state started Monday.
“We are writing to warn all Georgia County election officials that participating in this charade is in violation of state and federal law,” wrote Sean Young, legal director of the Georgia ACLU. “Accordingly, you should reject such challenges because they have no probable cause, and you cannot force hundreds of thousands of voters in Georgia to answer these baseless allegations as a condition of having their ballots counted.”
Since the challenges are implemented at the local level, Raffensperger has no role, even though he is the state’s highest-ranking election official. In a statement, he did not endorse the residency challenges, but said he “supports any effort that builds faith in our electoral system that follows proper legal process.”