Several Metro Atlanta counties have been inundated with mass voting eligibility challenges from tens of thousands of registered voters, filed with the help of groups promoting baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud.
Local electoral authorities have so far rejected most mass appeals, but new ones can still be filed while voting is underway.
Why are all these mass challenges happening now?
While Georgia’s new Electoral Law SB-202 made it clear that individuals could challenge an “unlimited” number of voters in their county, there was never an explicit limit.
And indeed, people filed thousands of challenges even before the new election law was passed, spurred on by former President Trump and his allies’ false claims of widespread fraud.
“We saw over 300,000 voter challenges filed en masse across the state in December 2020,” said Vasu Abhiraman, senior policy counsel at the ACLU of Georgia.
Abhiraman says Georgia’s new electoral law, for the first time, did not allow for mass challenges, but the explicit language essentially “blessed” the practice, fueled even further by rhetoric about stolen elections.
What happens when disputes are filed for the first time?
If a voter’s eligibility to vote is challenged in the upcoming election, the local Electoral Commission will be directed to consider the claim “immediately” and use a very high threshold of evidence to advance complaints.
“They should immediately examine the evidence submitted and see if it rises to the level of probable cause,” says Abhiraman. “And if they don’t, they reject it, and that’s it.”
Merely arguing that a voter has requested a change of address, for example, is not sufficient to support a challenge to their eligibility to vote.
The majority of the crowd challenges failed this initial assessment and were dismissed.
Can individual voters personally challenge another voter in the elections?
no Original instructions from the Office of the Secretary of State implied that this was possible, but it has since been corrected. Challenges can only be addressed in writing to the local electoral office.
What happens if I vote after a rejection is submitted but before the board considers it?
An election board may not be able to meet literally “right away” when every challenge comes in. Abhiraman says the Gwinnett County board, for example, was unable to gather enough members to consider a recent challenge, so it remains pending. But until they meet, a voter’s registration is unaffected and they can vote like everyone else.
“If you vote in person and your ballot went into the scanner, that was it,” says Abhiraman. “You can’t take your vote back. There is no logistical way to take your vote back. At this point it is a secret ballot.”
To complicate things a little, the schedule is slightly different depending on the type of Voter Challenge submitted. Challenges to a voter’s eligibility to vote in the current election (known as the 230 Challenge) must be resolved “immediately.”
An even more severe version of the Voter Challenge (referred to as the 229 Challenge) aims to completely wipe a voter’s registration. The electoral committees must notify the voter within 10 days, conduct a hearing and decide on these challenges.
What happens when a challenge reaches the probable cause threshold?
The voter’s registration status will show as contested in the system.
The law states that “where practicable” those constituents should be notified and given an opportunity to resolve the dispute.
If not, it’s possible for a voter to arrive at the polling station to find that their voter registration status is marked as contested.
What should I do if I get to the ballot box and find out my registration has been challenged?
In some counties, local voters can sign an affidavit, fix the issue, and vote as usual. The Office of the Secretary of State encourages polling stations to adopt this practice.
Otherwise, voters are asked to vote on a paper ballot, which is marked as disputed and not counted until the dispute is resolved.
“I understand the desire not to vote on a disputed ballot and hope that the matter can be resolved before the voter can come back and cast a regular ballot,” Abhiraman said. “That being said, as the days go by and especially when you show up on Election Day, go ahead and cast that vote.”
What happens after I cast a ballot marked as disputed?
“If you’re in that situation and you turn in a contested ballot, a hearing about whether you’re actually an eligible voter, then that has to happen,” says Abhiraman.
The electoral office is scheduled to hold a hearing. The entire process must be completed before the deadline for confirming the election, which is November 15th.
Can my registration be marked as contested for other reasons?
There are several other reasons your registration may appear contested – including standard procedures that the state and counties follow to keep voter rolls accurate, such as:
Do I need to worry about not being able to vote?
“For the vast majority of voters in Georgia, you don’t get involved in this challenge process,” says Abhiraman. “[If] You are a voter who shows up and finds you are in challenge status. Being educated on this will help ensure you are not surprised and you can take the right next steps to ensure this is resolved and your vote counted.”
While it’s unclear how many more mass challenges will take place in the final days of the midterms, election experts say these mass challenges are tying up hours of extra work for poll workers at a moment when they’re running out of time.
“It punishes the staff, it challenges the voter, it causes delays, it puts the poll official in an awkward position. I call it killing a flea with a shotgun,” said Stephen Day, a member of the Gwinnett County Elections Board, at a recent meeting where the board identified thousands of challenges.
