Georgia

The sudden drop in voter registrations stood out to Richard Barron, Fulton County’s former elections director, when he first noticed it in February 2021. Without explanation, the number of registration applications had dramatically declined, from 35,000 the previous February to less than 6,000 in the same month a year later. Similar decreases happened across Georgia throughout last year. Barron suspected something had changed with Georgia’s automatic registration program, which was supposed to sign up eligible voters by default at driver’s licenses offices unless they opt out. He said his staff called and emailed the secretary of state’s office several times but didn’t find answers. It turned out the Georgia Department of Driver Services had shut off automatic voter registration when it redesigned its website early last year as part of a broader technology overhaul. Instead of registering drivers by default, the new website required drivers to click “Yes” or “No” when asked whether they wanted to sign up.

A Fulton County elections worker targeted by harassment and conspiracy theories after the 2020 election, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, has won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Moss is one of five people being honored for their roles in protecting democracy. The recipients were announced Thursday by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Former President Donald Trump and his supporters falsely accused Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, of rigging the election by counting absentee ballots stored in hidden “suitcases” at State Farm Arena on election night. Election investigations and publicly available videos showed no improprieties. Even after election officials debunked fraud allegations, Moss faced death threats and racist taunts, forcing her to go into hiding. “Despite the onslaught of random, undeserved, and malicious attacks, Moss continues to serve in the Fulton County Department of Registration & Elections doing the hard and unseen work to run our democracy,” the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation said.

Georgia election investigators reported Wednesday that they found repeated human errors during an unofficial hand recount of the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, but the overall results appeared to be correct. The State Election Board then voted 3-1 to refer the case to the attorney general’s office for further investigation into whether Fulton’s elections office violated election rules. Investigators reviewed Fulton’s recount in response to concerns raised by Gov. Brian Kemp, who told the board in a November letter that he had vetted allegations of inconsistencies in the hand recount, part of a statewide audit of all 5 million ballots cast. Overall, the results of the hand recount — both in Fulton and all of Georgia — were similar to two machine counts, showing that Democrat Joe Biden won the state by about 12,000 votes against Republican Donald Trump. Two Houston County residents had claimed to Kemp there were batches of Fulton ballots with 100% of votes for Biden, duplicated batches and incorrect data. The investigation indicated that the allegations can be explained by mistakes by election workers during the first-ever statewide election audit, which included a review of over 525,000 Fulton paper ballots.

Election officials in rural Lincoln County on Wednesday voted against closing all seven of the county’s polling places, a plan that would have replaced them with one new central voting location. The unanimous decision to keep every polling place open followed months of protests and petition drives objecting to the proposal, saying it would limit voter access in the county, located north of Augusta. “The voters of Lincoln County spoke loud and clear on the proposals to consolidate polling locations,” said Cindy Battles of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a voting rights group that helped organize opposition to the poll closure plan. “We are incredibly happy the board of elections listened to them.” The elections board backed down from the poll closure idea in response to resistance that began late last year. Voting rights organizations gathered hundreds of signatures on petitions in January that blocked some of the poll closures from moving forward. Under Georgia law, a petition signed by at least 20% of registered voters in a precinct can prevent its closure.

It was a rare bipartisan election proposal: Make paper ballots public in Georgia so anyone who doubted election results could see for themselves. But a bill to make that idea a reality quickly sparked resistance. Opponents fear the legislation would enable endless “audits” driven by losing candidates who will never accept defeat, turning any ambiguity or mistake into the next stolen election claim. Democrats withdrew support for the measure following criticism from Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group that Democrat Stacey Abrams started, concerned that the proposal would do more to undermine elections than increase confidence in them. Georgia election officials conducted three ballot counts and repeated investigations of the 2020 election, finding isolated problems but no widespread fraud. Nonetheless, former President Donald Trump and some of his supporters have continued to spread conspiracy theories about the results. The bill’s backers say it would allow the public to verify elections, identify errors, detect counting mistakes and hold election officials accountable. Republican state Rep. Shaw Blackmon, the bill’s lead sponsor, said transparency is the key to building trust in elections. “This bill would give voters more confidence and help them understand more thoroughly our process,” said Blackmon, who represents Bonaire. “Both parties wanted a paper ballot because people are more comfortable working with real documents. And this makes those documents open to public inspection.”

A confidential report alleging Georgia’s voting touchscreens could be hacked is now being reviewed by the federal government. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency wrote in a court filing late Thursday that it will assess potential vulnerabilities and decide whether updates or patches are needed to mitigate risks. CISA’s action came in response to a report by a computer scientist who said votes could be changed if someone gained physical access to Georgia’s voting touchscreens or election management computers. Georgia election officials say the state’s voting systems are secure and that vulnerabilities discovered in a lab would be difficult to exploit in a real election. There’s no indication that Georgia’s election computers manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were hacked in the 2020 election, but an ongoing election security lawsuit alleges the touchscreens could be exploited in future elections. Three ballot counts and multiple investigations checked the 2020 election results. Both Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and plaintiffs in the lawsuit have called for a redacted version of the hacking report to be made public, but CISA urged a judge not to disseminate further information for now.

After the hectic 2020 Georgia primary, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made a bombshell allegation from the steps of Liberty Plaza outside the Georgia Capitol that 1,000 people potentially voted twice. A year and a half later, an investigation by his own office has found less double voting than he had suspected. Most of Raffensperger’s allegation couldn’t be proved, the latest claim of voting fraud surrounding the 2020 election that fell short under scrutiny. Unlike former President Donald Trump’s false claims about his election being stolen, investigators validated some of Raffensperger’s assertions of double voting. The secretary of state’s office disclosed preliminary findings of its double voting investigation in response to requests by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The investigation so far indicates about 300 voters cast two ballots in the June 2020 primary and August 2020 primary runoff, almost always because of mistakes by confused voters and poll workers. The number of double voters could rise because about 100 cases remain under investigation.

A confidential report alleges that hackers could flip votes if they gained access to Georgia’s touchscreens, drawing interest from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Louisiana election officials and Fox News. One key agency hasn’t asked the court to disclose the report: the Georgia secretary of state’s office. There’s no sign that state election officials have done anything about the vulnerability, a potential flaw dangerous enough to be kept under seal, labeled in court as “attorneys’ eyes only” six months ago. The vulnerability hasn’t been exploited in an election so far, according to examinations of the state’s Dominion Voting Systems equipment, but election security experts say it’s a risk for upcoming elections this year. Investigations have repeatedly debunked allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. Georgia election officials won’t say what actions they’ve taken, if any, to improve security or detect tampering. State election officials declined to answer questions about a report they haven’t seen, which outlined the flaw as part of a lawsuit aimed at forcing the state to abandon its $138 million voting system that prints out paper ballots and instead use paper ballots filled out by hand. Several election integrity advocates said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger shouldn’t ignore the issue, even if he believes existing protections would prevent illicit access to voting equipment. “It’s really concerning that the Georgia secretary of state and Dominion are kind of putting their head in the sand,” said Susan Greenhalgh, an election security consultant for plaintiffs suing over Georgia’s voting system. “Common sense would say you would want to be able to evaluate the claims and then take appropriate action, and they’re not doing any of that.”

Both Georgia election officials and critics of the state’s voting touchscreens asked a federal judge Thursday to release a confidential report that describes how a hacker could attempt to change votes. The calls for disclosure come a day after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an article on the findings of University of Michigan computer science professor Alex Halderman, who detailed vulnerabilities of Georgia’s voting equipment in a sealed court document. There’s no sign of tampering with the state’s Dominion Voting Systems equipment in the 2020 election, according to audits and experts, but Halderman’s report outlined risks for upcoming elections this year. Halderman is an expert for plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to replace Georgia’s voting system that prints out paper ballots, instead using paper ballots filled out by hand. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said in a court teleconference Thursday that she will review a version of Halderman’s report that redacts sensitive information and decide whether to make it public by Monday. Totenberg said she was displeased that the report, which has been discussed in public court hearings but remains under seal, became a “political football.” “I’m unhappy with the political treatment of the report,” Totenberg said. “... The entire purpose of having hearings was to maximize transparency but at the same time be mindful of the risks involved of disclosure.”

A federal judge held off Monday on releasing more information from a sealed report alleging that someone who gained access to Georgia’s voting computers could flip votes. Before deciding whether to make portions of the report public, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg asked for proposals from Georgia election officials and plaintiffs suing over election security. “I want people to understand the general concerns … without giving anyone a road map to hacking or intruding on the system or manipulating it,” Totenberg said during a court hearing. There’s no indication that Georgia’s election computers manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were hacked in the 2020 election, but the lawsuit alleges that the touchscreens are a risk in future elections. Totenberg said she hoped to move quickly to share information without undermining election security. She asked attorneys to submit proposals by Wednesday. One option discussed in court would allow disclosure of the report to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that wrote a letter to the judge Jan. 21 informing her that potential vulnerabilities could be disclosed and mitigated. Meanwhile, a version of the report could also be prepared for public consumption. Both Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and election security advocates called last week for the report to be released following an article about it by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is requesting a special grand jury to aid in her investigation of former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. In a Thursday letter to Christopher S. Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County’s Superior Court, Willis said the move was needed because a “significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.” She cited comments Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made during an October 2021 interview with NBC News, in which he said “if (Willis) wants to interview me, there’s a process for that.” So-called special purpose grand juries are rarely used in Georgia. But they could be a valuable tool for Willis as she takes the extraordinary step of investigating the conduct of a president while he was in office, legal experts say. “I think it makes sense,” said Melissa Redmon, a former Fulton County deputy DA who’s now an assistant clinical professor at the University of Georgia’s law school. “Having a jury that’s already familiar with the investigation just saves everyone a lot of time.”

A replacement elections board is planning to close all seven polling places in Lincoln County north of Augusta, requiring in-person voters to report to one centralized location. The poll closures would reduce voting access for rural residents who would have to drive 15 miles or more to cast a ballot in a county with no public transportation options, leading to opposition from voting rights advocates. The plan is moving forward after a state law passed this year abolished the previous county elections board and gave a majority of appointments to the Republican County Commission. Lincoln is one of six counties where the Republican-controlled Georgia General Assembly reorganized local election boards. “This is about the powerful flexing their muscles and saying, ‘We can do whatever we want to do, and who’s going to stop us?’ ” said the Rev. Denise Freeman, who is organizing Lincoln voters to oppose the poll closures. “In Lincoln County, it’s always been about power and control.” The county’s elections director, Lilvender Bolton, said a central voting center near the city of Lincolnton would give voters a single site for both early and election day voting, and it would provide more space than small, little-used precincts.

Republican candidate for Georgia governor David Perdue filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to inspect absentee ballots in Fulton County, repeating some of the same unproven allegations as in a lawsuit dismissed two months ago. Perdue’s complaint, filed four days after he launched his campaign, revives a series of failed lawsuits by supporters of former President Donald Trump searching for fraud in last year’s election. Perdue has put false claims of election fraud at the center of his campaign against incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The former U.S. senator said he wouldn’t have certified the election results and wanted a special legislative session to delve into conspiracy theories about the outcome. State election officials have said there’s no indication of fraud after three ballot counts and multiple investigations. Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump by about 12,000 votes in Georgia. Perdue’s lawsuit echoes a case that also sought to inspect about 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County. Digital images of the ballots were made public earlier this year, but the plaintiffs want to review the originals.