Republicans challenge over 63,000 Georgia voters, with little success
From Georgia's mountains to its Atlantic shore, challenges to the qualifications of voters have rolled in this summer and fall, part of a wide-ranging national effort coordinated by Donald Trump’s allies to enlist Republican activists to remove people they view as suspect from the voting rolls.
Thus far, barely 1% of people called into question have been removed from the rolls or placed into challenged status, mostly because counties are disregarding challenges. But those who allege Georgia's voting rolls are bloated with ineligible voters are trying to change that, filing lawsuits and pushing the Trump-aligned State Election Board to order counties to do more.
The Associated Press finds more than 63,000 Georgians have been challenged since July 1, when a law that could make it easier to uphold challenges partially took effect. The AP's survey covered Georgia's 39 most populous counties, as well as six other counties with challenge activity. That’s a big surge from 2023 and the first half of 2024, when the AP found that about 18,000 voters were challenged.
And efforts are spreading geographically. They had been concentrated in majority-Democratic counties in metro Atlanta. But since July 1, 100 or more voters have been challenged in at least 20 counties statewide, including some heavily Republican areas.
As the AP found earlier, county election officials continue rejecting the vast majority of challenges. Fewer than 800 voters since July 1 — mostly in the suburban Atlanta Republican stronghold of Forsyth County — have been removed from the rolls or placed in challenged status. Voters in challenged status can cast ballots if they prove their residence, but counties are supposed to consider removing them next year if they don't vote.
The effort to remove voters has drawn scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department, which in September issued a seven-page guidance memo that aims to limit challenges and block parts of the new Georgia law by citing 1993’s National Voter Registration Act.
Most of the targeted voters appear to have moved away from their listed addresses, and activists argue letting them stay registered invites fraud. Challengers have been aided by tools which rely on change-of-address lists and other documents to help identify people who could be wrongly registered.
“When ineligible voters remain on the voter rolls, it increases the likelihood of those persons voting in our county, which dilutes the legitimate votes of our citizens,” said Marci McCarthy, chair of the DeKalb County Republican Party, which sued its county board of elections this month alleging it was failing to hear challenges. “And every vote by an ineligible voter robs us as citizens of our vote.”