Georgia Election Chief Seeks to Reduce Challenges to Voter Eligibility
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(Bloomberg) -- Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger plans to ask the legislature to “tighten up” a provision in a 2021 law that allowed individuals to file tens of thousands of voter registration challenges this year.
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The provision was part of a voting overhaul the GOP-led body passed in response to the 2020 election in Georgia. It allowed individuals to file unlimited numbers of challenges to voter’s eligibility to cast ballots, tying up county election administrators time and staff and making it more difficult for some people to vote.
The challenges included more than 37,000 filed in one day in Gwinnett County outside of Atlanta, by a group backed by former President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com. Both were outspoken advocates of Trump’s voter fraud and stolen election lies.
Speaking on a webcast press conference on election security ahead of next week’s midterm election, Raffensperger, a Republican, said the challenges were intended to “gum up the works” and that counties had mostly ruled in favor of the challenged voters. All of the Gwinnett cases were eventually thrown out.
The law required county elections boards to rule on a short timeline on each challenge, many of which were based on US Postal Service data on address changes. If a board ruled a challenge valid, it could put challenged voters on probationary status, making voting more complicated, or kick them off the rolls entirely.
Raffensperger said he expected the state legislature to address the problem when it comes back into session next year.
“We need some reform on that to tighten that up,” he said.
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