Why is this happening?
Challengers cite a need to ensure up-to-date voter rolls to fight against “voter fraud”, when in fact, voter fraud is exceedingly rare as proven in numerous court cases and audits. In fact, Georgia’s voter rolls are clean and well-maintained as the state is part of a national, interstate voter data program called ERIC that identifies voters who vote more than once in any election. ERIC provides Secretaries of State with additional information to identify voters that are no longer eligible to vote in their state. Thus, all of the additional work and taxpayer expense generated by these voter challenges have yielded no benefit to voter roll accuracy. Instead, GOP challengers’ actions point to something else: an aim to disenfranchise voters who typically vote Democratic: voters of color, voters who live in areas where changing demographics are turning the area purple and voters who find it hard to fight back (e.g., homeless, students living out of state, people who may be caring for family out of state, etc). In Georgia, challengers do not need to know the people whose registrations they challenge. They present scant evidence to disqualify voters. In fact, one man has attempted to use third-party software that is neither proven nor legally permitted to collect hundreds of voter names at one time to challenge. Recent challengers have admitted that they are not working alone, rather are part of a larger effort to remove voters from rolls. Violation of Federal Protection Furthermore, the National Voting Rights Act of 1993 states that no voter may be removed from a state’s rolls (canceled in the state’s database) until two federal election cycles have occurred, and after the voter has been notified that they are going to be removed. Election deniers bypass this NVRA requirement by challenging voters at the county election board level. Some counties, including Forsyth, are removing NVRA-protected voters without following the NVRA requirement, potentially violating voters’ 14th Amendment rights. In a state with elections as close as Georgia, removing a few hundred voters from the rolls matters. Comments are closed.
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September 2024
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