Voter challenges target more than 25,000 registrations

Conservatives have challenged more than 25,500 voter registrations this year in Georgia through a process created in legislation that Republicans pushed through the General Assembly last year following Donald Trump’s defeat here in the 2020 presidential election.

They have succeeded in seeing more than 1,800 voters removed from the rolls in Chatham, Cobb, DeKalb, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett and Spalding counties, according to the voting rights organization Fair Fight Action.

Any voters can challenge eligibility of an unlimited number of their neighbors who they suspect have moved away based on voter lists, address records or property tax documents.

The challengers say they’re not targeting anyone based on their political beliefs or voting record. Instead, they’re seeking individuals whose names could be used to cast illegal votes in the future, even though Georgia requires voter ID before casting a ballot.

It’s not like the state has had a problem culling registrations from its list of 7.7 million voters. Using some of the nation’s most rigorous voter cancellation practices, Georgia has removed nearly 1 million outdated registrations over the past five years. That includes an electoral cleansing in 2017 that voided 534,000 registrations, believed to be the largest mass cancellation in U.S. history.

Election officials mailed notifications this summer to as many as 142,000 voters who appear to have moved. Those who don’t respond can be removed if they miss the next two general elections, a process that normally takes eight years. If they confirm they have moved, they are canceled without delay.

Voter challenges speed up the process of removal. County election boards are required to hold hearings on challenges within 10 business days.

County election boards usually reject challenges unless there’s conclusive evidence that a voter is no longer eligible in Georgia. But when the boards uphold allegations, the voters are immediately removed from Georgia’s rolls.

Sometimes eligible voters get caught in the process. That happened to Tracy Taylor, who is homeless and registered to vote at the address of a post office on Atlanta’s Westside.

“If I had a residential address, I would be using it,” Taylor told the Fulton County elections board during a hearing this month. “I’m trying to get back to a normal life.”

Fulton officials that day removed about 280 voters out of about 1,500 challenges. Taylor was told to re-register at a courthouse address.