This month, a new law took effect in Georgia that makes it easier to remove voters from the rolls through ballot challenges. Georgia has already made ballot challenges far too easy. Now, voters in the state are at increased risk of losing their right to vote or being forced to defend it in public hearings. Ballot objectors also have ample leeway to spread disinformation and waste election officials' time. These challenges are fueled by false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen.” These include claims that ineligible people voted, even though all evidence indicates there was no widespread voter fraud in that election.
The impact of the new law, Senate Bill 189, is already being felt. On July 1, the Bibb County party chairman rejected 243 voters; the local committee placed 45 of those voters in “rejection status,” meaning they must take additional steps to have their votes counted in the fall.
Some of the county election boards tasked with implementing this undemocratic law are taking steps to limit the damage. The Fulton County board said it will continue to apply federal voter protections, that challengers must provide concrete evidence rather than the blanket evidence they often provide, and that the board will not remove anyone from the voter rolls based on clerical errors such as a typo in an address. It even gives specific examples, including that a simple roll check is not enough to remove someone from the voter rolls. All counties in the state should follow suit.
In Georgia, any registered voter can file an unlimited number of appeals against their voters with their local election board, arguing that those on the voter rolls are ineligible to vote. Activists have filed about half a million appeals in the state since the January 2021 Senate runoff elections.
These mass challenges are almost always based on weak evidence that does not justify removing voters from the rolls. For example, they compare names on national change of address forms (which you fill out when you want your mail forwarded) with names on purchased, static copies of the voter rolls. But challengers often fail to take into account that there are several people with the same name or that someone may only want their mail forwarded temporarily. A federal court recently found that the tactics used in the 2021 mass challenges filed in Georgia were “sloppy and riddled with errors.”
The good news is that county election boards have consistently rejected these appeals in recent years. Time and again, the boards said the appeals did not provide enough evidence to remove someone from the voter rolls. Local officials who reviewed the appeals called them “guesswork” and “inaccurate allegations.”
These failures have not deterred challengers. Instead, some groups have doubled down on their efforts and developed software that can automate the process of generating mass challenges. These tools make submitting challenges easier, but do not fix the problems with the methodology.
Even when voter challenges are rejected, they pose major problems. They cause election officials to waste countless hours. A 2022 challenge of 37,000 voters in Gwinnett County forced 5 to 10 poll workers to work “all day, every day, six days a week” for several weeks, and not a single ineligible voter was found. In fact, in at least one case, proponents of mass challenges have said their goal is to overwhelm election officials; the proponents can then sell officials “solutions” that are really just challenge lists under another name.
Moreover, such challenges can be intimidating. Voters may become afraid when they learn that their name is on a list submitted to the government or when they receive a notification that their right to vote is in jeopardy.
Challenges also spread misinformation when they are used as “proof” that ineligible people are voting. No state's voter rolls are perfect, but there is no evidence to support such claims in Georgia or anywhere else.
Rather than rethink their strategy, some groups pushed for a change in the rules. The result was Georgia SB 189. Local boards must hold hearings for all voters whose appeals are denied if there is a “reasonable suspicion,” and the new law specifies that certain types of information—including information known to be unreliable—must meet that standard. Obviously erroneous information can no longer be dismissed for what it is, meaning weak appeals will force officials to send voters notices that they must defend their rights at a hearing. This is a potentially intimidating process, even for voters who remain on the rolls, and a nuisance for officials.
Also troubling are all the questions the law does not answer: most notably, what must be proven at a hearing to disqualify a voter. Consider a challenge based on the fact that a voter has died. Is the challenger's testimony sufficient? Could an obituary in the newspaper suffice? Is a death certificate required? The open nature of the law invites far-reaching challenges and leaves it up to already overworked election officials to figure out the details.
At a time of seemingly endless attacks on voters and elections, states should be protecting voters and poll workers. Georgia has instead made its voter rolls available for a voter denial experiment. Rather than accept the good news—elections in this state are not plagued by fraud—individuals unhappy with recent election results have changed the rules of the game to create the appearance of fraud where there is none.