Georgia: Election Chief Probes Voter Fraud Amid Tight Senate Race | Bloomberg

Georgia’s top elections official gave a nonprofit group that has registered more than 85,000 minority voters until tomorrow to produce every record it has, in what critics say is an effort to suppress minority voting in November’s tight race for the U.S. Senate. Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a Republican, is accusing the New Georgia Project of fraud in its drive to reach the more than 800,000 minority Georgians not on the rolls. Kemp served a subpoena on organizers a day after first lady Michelle Obama urged on the effort at an Atlanta appearance. Kemp spokesman Jared Thomas said the office received fraud reports from several county elections offices. “We had clear evidence,” he said. “We need to know the totality of it.”

Georgia: Rep. Stacey Abrams investigated for voter fraud | WXIA

An investigation is underway into claims of voter fraud involving the state’s highest ranking Democratic elected official. The Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office launched an investigation after they allegedly received complaints of possible voter fraud from election offices in nearly a dozen counties. “Our investigators were talking to the counties and to individuals who’d had their names forged on voter registration documents,” Kemp said. “You know that’s fraud.” Kemp’s office has slapped Rep. Stacey Abrams’ organization, the New Georgia Project with a subpoena. demanding that they turn over all documents related to their efforts to “register voters, store voter information, contact voters or any other canvassing project.”

Georgia: State launches fraud investigation into voter registration group | WSBTV

Channel 2 Action News has learned Georgia’s secretary of state is investigating allegations of forged voter registration applications and demanding records from a voter registration group with ties to one of the state’s highest ranking Democrats. A subpoena was sent to the New Georgia Project and its parent organization Third Sector Development on Tuesday. The organization is a project of the nonprofit organization Third Sector Development, which was founded and is led by House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams. The subpoena demands all documents be turned over to the State Election Board’s investigators by Sept. 16.

Georgia: Voter registration begins online | The Newnan Times-Herald

The distribution of absentee ballots for military voters began this week for the May 20 general election primary and non-partisan election. While paper ballots for military voters must be available for at least 45 days before an election, in-person early voting for the election won’t begin until April 28. Local elections officials will begin “logic and accuracy testing” on the absentee ballots on Monday. There are three weeks remaining to register to vote. And registering has been made easier with the launch of an online voter registration system. Georgians with a valid Georgia driver’s license will now be able to register to vote or change their address online.

Georgia: State initiates online voter registration | The Daily Tribune News

With a new system going live Monday, Georgia residents will now be able to go online and register to vote. “In 2012, I worked with legislative leaders to craft a law that would allow for online voter registration,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in a press release. “We did this because Georgians deserve to be able to register to vote or change their information with as much ease as possible. This will not only provide benefits to the voter, but also for all 159 Georgia counties.” Locally, Bartow County Election Supervisor Joseph Kirk believed the online registration system will help his office keep the number of voters up, but he did not predict a large increase in registered voters.

Georgia: Westside valedictorian first to sign up as Georgia launches on-line voter registration | The Augusta Chronicle

The first Georgian to register to vote online, Westside High School valedictorian Eniolufe Asebiomo, signed up Monday before an audience of hundreds of elections officials from across the state. Asebiomo called the new system, unveiled Monday by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, “really a good step that innovates technology into the civic process” at a conference of elections officials at the Augusta Convention Center. Kemp said the system will save counties time and money. It requires new voters to have a Georgia driver’s license.

Georgia: Attorney general to investigate Fulton County voting | CBS

The Georgia Attorney General’s Office is expected to investigate the voting problems reported in Fulton County during the 2012 presidential election. The State Election Board voted on Tuesday to refer the case to the attorney general after reviewing the results of an investigation by the secretary of state. In November 2012, voters encountered long lines, confused poll workers and voter registration rolls that were not up to date. The report by the secretary of state concluded: These multiple failures seem to be linked to poor planning, insufficient training, poor communication and poor decision-making. Perhaps most troubling is the apparent utter disregard for the security and integrity of practically the entirety of the provisional ballot process. Almost 10,000 votes were essentially un-documented or under-documented and under-secured.

Georgia: Georgia voter I.D. law blocked | Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling partly blocks Georgia from enforcing a law requiring would-be voters to prove U.S. citizenship, Secretary of State Brian Kemp said Wednesday. In a 7-2 decision Monday, the court ruled a similar statute in Arizona is pre-empted by federal law. Passed in 2009, Georgia’s law requires voter registration applicants to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, such as copies of passports or birth certificates. Kemp, however, said Georgia has never been able to enforce that statute because it has not been given access to a federal immigration database it could use to confirm the U.S. citizenship of those seeking to vote. He said he is now considering asking the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to add new instructions on federal voter registration forms so Georgia can require proof of U.S. citizenship. In its ruling, the court indicated that is a possible pathway forward for Arizona. “We will put all options on the table — whether we need to talk to the governor or Legislature or the Attorney General’s Office,” Kemp said.

North Carolina: Florida Election Official: Cutting early voting times a mistake | WRAL.com

The House Elections Committee heard from a Florida official Wednesday who said that curtailing early voting hours during the 2012 election led to long lines on Election Day. “It was a nightmare,” said Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Leon County, Fla. Sancho and Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, were invited to speak mainly about how voter identification requirements are handled in their states.  Florida cut back early voting from 14 days to eight days in 2012. Lawmakers in the House and Senate have filed bills that would curtail early voting in North Carolina. For example, House Bill 451, filed by Rep. Edgar Starnes, R-Caldwell, would cut North Carolina’s early voting period by a week, to roughly 10 days, and outlaw early voting on Sundays. Sancho said that lawmakers in Florida have taken up a bill to both restore the early voting period to a full two weeks and allow for Sunday voting. Florida counties haven’t been able to open enough voting-day locations to keep up with population growth, he said, calling early voting “our safety valve.”

Georgia: Fulton County disputes vote tampering allegations | www.ajc.com

Fulton County’s interim elections director denies her staff tampered with polling records by adding dozens of voters’ names to tally sheets last year. It wasn’t fraud, Sharon Mitchell says, but correcting mistakes. But Secretary of State Brian Kemp maintains the county’s actions were likely illegal. Not only did the department’s missteps cause more people to use paper ballots than the entire rest of the state combined, Kemp says the county also mishandled those ballots in the aftermath and may have counted some votes twice. Documents unveiled by a state investigator last week showed someone used a red pen to add more than 50 names to the list of people using paper ballots at one precinct and five names to the list from another precinct.

Georgia: State investigators: Fulton election documents were altered | www.ajc.com

Someone altered Fulton County voter records after last year’s presidential election, using a red pen to add names to tally sheets of voters using paper ballots and marking that their votes all counted. Who is responsible remains a mystery, but it happened after managers from at least two precincts had signed off on the documents and submitted them to the main county elections office. “I know for certain that these additional names were added after,” Rosalyn Murphy, who served in November as an assistant poll manager at Church of the Redeemer in Sandy Springs, told the State Election Board during a hearing Thursday focusing on the performance of the county’s elections office. “That doesn’t even look like our handwriting.”

Georgia: Voting flaws in Fulton County | Hank Johnson/Atlanta Journal Constitution

Reports of serious errors occurring Election Day in electronic-voting machines in Fulton County demonstrate the urgency of passing legislation to verify the accuracy of our voting systems. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp called Fulton County’s election administration a “debacle,” noting that this is yet another example of “the constant and systemic nature of election failures in Fulton County.” During this summer’s primary elections, several Fulton County precincts also reported a substantial disparity between registered voters and ballots. Voting-machine errors resulted in voter turnouts that exceeded 100 percent in some precincts. This figure is astronomical when compared to the statewide turnout that averaged between 10 and 20 percent. But one precinct had an impossible turnout of 23,300 percent. These kinds of problems with voting machines are precisely why I introduced H.R. 6246, the Verifying Official Totals for Elections (VOTE) Act. Not only does it improve our confidence in election data through transparency and accountability, more importantly, it assures accuracy.

Georgia: State probes Fulton elections errors  | ajc.com

Fulton County made an array of errors in the July 31 primary, putting voters in the wrong elections, declaring results to the state more than an hour late and producing data that doesn’t add up. Now state elections officials want to know whether Fulton performed poorly enough to throw off some of the final results, a spokesman for Secretary of State Brian Kemp confirmed. The state has launched an investigation into the county’s elections procedures. “I wouldn’t restrict it or limit it to any race at this point,” Kemp spokesman Jared Thomas said, declining to elaborate.

Georgia: Secretary of State criticizes Fulton County over vote counting progress, communication | The Republic

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp said he is concerned about “numerous and substantial issues” surrounding Tuesday’s primary election in Fulton County and more concerned with a lack of communication with local voting officials. WSB-TV reports that Fulton County was scheduled to certify the results of Tuesday’s primary by noon Saturday. That deadline came and went. Now county election officials plan to meet Monday night.

Georgia: Kemp says lawmakers will have to consider ending runoff elections in Georgia | AJC

State lawmakers will have to consider getting rid of runoff elections in Georgia next year – at least those involving federal candidates in general elections – because of a recent ruling by a U.S. district judge requiring 45 days for ballots cast by members of the U.S. military to make their way home, Secretary of State Brian Kemp on Monday. Ballot requirements insisted on by the U.S. Justice Department and upheld by the court last week all but invalidate a current state law requiring that winners in all general elections receive 50 percent plus one vote, Kemp said – given that federal runoffs in those contests would have to be delayed until late December. “We’d be voting during Christmas. There may be people getting certified while other people are getting sworn in. It’s really a logistical nightmare,” Kemp said.