Georgia Election Board member Janice Johnston voted Sept. 23 in favor of the board opening an investigation into eight county boards that review mass voter eligibility challenges filed predominantly by conservative residents. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
An investigation into allegations that several county election boards are failing to properly investigate challenges disputing voter eligibility is on the agenda of the controversial Georgia State Election Board on Tuesday.
The State Election Board will hold its final scheduled meeting Tuesday ahead of the Nov. 5 general election, where rules adopted by three members loyal to former President Donald Trump are facing legal challenges.
On Tuesday, the executive director of the Election Board, Mike Coan, is set to present the findings of an investigation into allegations that eight election boards in counties led by Democrats are improperly dismissing complaints about the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters.
Election Board members Janelle King, Janice Johnston and Rick Jeffares, praised by former President Donald Trump during a recent Atlanta rally, voted Sept. 23 to have Coan look into the claims that led to the DeKalb County Republican Party alleging that the DeKalb board is not following the law for reviewing voter eligibility complaints.
The mass voter challenge controversy has been a mainstay in Georgia politics over the last several years since the feverish push to overturn the 2020 presidential election results after Trump narrowly lost to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes.
Many conservatives have argued that voter registration lists need to be purged of ineligible votes, while Democrats and progressive activists have argued that mass voter challenges aim to intimidate and remove voters who should remain eligible to cast ballots.
Activists and GOP-aligned groups are now using data scraping technologies to probe Google in search of possible signs that voters have moved out of their voting jurisdiction by using artificial intelligence apps like EagleAI.
In an analysis conducted by TargetSmart, a market research firm, a number of problems were identified with the data sources that have been used by these voter challenges. The analysis was conducted on behalf of the progressive-leaning nonprofit organization Fair Fight Action, says that tools such as EagleAI are using problematic National Change of Address data as the basis for voter challenges.
“They tend to scrape the internet for anything connecting the voter’s data to information indicating that their registration should have lapsed: an obituary, a business address or a social media post, for example,” the TargetSmart report reads. “However, searching for a voter’s name and address on the internet is extremely likely to yield false matches or misleading information; any ‘’evidence’ produced by this type of search should be viewed with skepticism and certainly investigated further.”
Several million Georgians are expected to cast mail-in ballots and vote in person at polling places by Nov. 5, when the presidential race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris could be decided, as well as other seats up for grabs in Congress, all 236 in the state Legislature, and more. Georgia is considered one of seven swing states in the presidential race according to recent polls. The statewide three week early voting period will run from Oct. 15 until Nov. 1.
Republican state legislators passed a bill in March that defines the probable cause required for voter eligibility challenges.
Under Georgia law, only a registered voter from the same county or municipality can challenge another voter’s eligibility before or on Election Day. A person challenging another voter must submit the challenge in writing and specify the grounds for the challenge.
The new law states that voter eligibility challenges filed within 45 days of an election cannot be heard until after certification of the election is completed.
A federal judge in Atlanta ruled in January that right-wing True the Vote did not violate the Voting Rights Act as alleged in a Fair Fight Action lawsuit that said the group’s intended to intimate voters as it challenged the eligibility of thousands of Georgian voters leading up to a pair of U.S. Senate runoffs in early 2021.
“The data being used by far-right election deniers to challenge Georgians’ freedom to vote is based on incomplete and flawed information — bottom line it should not be used to remove voters,” Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo said in a statement Friday. “It seems clear the Trump campaign and MAGA operation plan to use these faulty claims, just as they did in 2020, to push lies of voter fraud to mobilize their base and undermine the election results.”
Unsettled election certification lawsuits
The State Election Board’s recent rash of new rules for counting ballots, certifying elections and expanding poll watcher access has spurred lawsuits in Georgia courts.
Several lawsuits are seeking to block rules passed by the majority of the five-member board that could be implemented for the upcoming election.
The panel has previously passed a new rule that allows local election board members to access any election records and use any discrepancies to determine whether they vote to certify an election. The new certification rules require county election board members to conduct a reasonable inquiry before certifying results and allows the inspect any election related documents prior to certifying the election.
Last week, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said during hearings on election certification lawsuits that the reasonable inquiry rule is vague and needs clarification.
He said he plans to rule prior to the November election on the state and national Democratic Parties lawsuit seeking to override the rules or to clarify that they do not allow election board members to delay certification past the Nov. 12 deadline.
McBurney will also rule soon on a lawsuit filed by Fulton Election Board Member Julie Adams, who is requesting the court to give local officials the discretion to refuse to certify results.
At an Aug. 26 news conference, Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath accused three conservative Georgia State Election Board members of conducting an illegal meeting and passing new election certification rules that could be used by Donald Trump and Trump supporters to “throw our country into chaos.” Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder
The right-wing SEB faction singled out for praise by Trump held a July 12 meeting that came under fire for violating the state’s open meetings and prompted a July 18 lawsuit from public records watchdog American Oversight.
On July 30, the election board rescinded new ballot counting and expanded poll watcher rules passed on July 12. The rules changes were later passed at an August board meeting.
On Sept. 30, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Cox, Jr. dismissed American Oversight’s request for civil fines against the three board members.
During the Sept. 23 election board meeting, Johnston spoke out against the criticism of the board’s recent rule changes.
“There appears to be an irrational and widespread panic of Democrats and Republicans and all the people of Georgia that have been led to believe that the adopted paper count rule and other adopted rules might be the basis to not certify the election,” Johnston said at Sept. 23 board meeting. ”Nothing could be further from the truth. Please, let me reassure every Democrat and member of any other party and the citizens of Georgia that these rules will help to prevent a last minute surprise of questioning the results about the count or audit or recount.”
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