Peach Tree Times

A new lawsuit brought in a Georgia federal court alleges that Fulton County “does not maintain, nor does it even attempt to maintain, accurate voter rolls” and seeks to compel county and state authorities to abide by Georgia state law pertaining to elections and voter eligibility.

“Fulton County does not maintain, nor does it even attempt to maintain, accurate voter rolls. Just months ago, during an on-record Fulton County Board of Commissioners hearing, questions were asked to the Chair of the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections (FCDRE) concerning whether the FCDRE was fulfilling its lawfully compelled and non-discretionary duties regarding voter list maintenance,” read the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Aug. 28.

“When asked whether ineligible voters were being removed from the voter roll, FCDRE’s Chair admitted that ‘Fulton County never conducts an independent search for anybody; dead people, felons, [or even] people who live out-of-state.”

The lawsuit was brought by Jason Frazier and Earl Ferguson versus the FCDRE, its Members Sherri Allen, Aaron Johnson, Michael Heekin and Teresa K. Crawford, its Registration Manager Kathryn Glenn and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

It alleges that Fulton County has violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which mandates all states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.”

Under Georgia state law pertaining to elections, plaintiff Frazier submitted a voter roll challenge on Aug. 4 to contest the continued inclusion of certain electors who are no longer eligible to vote in Fulton County—and was required to have received a response containing notice of a hearing within 10 business days of his challenge being received, but did not.

“The issue here is that defendants, as a direct and proximate result of their communications with defendant Raffensperger, have conspicuously taken the NVRA’s aforesaid 90-day ‘quiet period’ and transposed the prohibition against removing ineligible voters identified by a state ran and operated systemic voter removal program and placed the prohibition upon any voters identified by a challenger’s use of a program that he or she uses in the [voter] challenge submission process,” the suit says.

“Secretary Raffensperger has falsely advised and/or instructed that federal law prohibits county election officials in Fulton County and throughout Georgia’s remaining 158 other counties from removing voters within 90 days of a federal election, if the ineligible voters identified by a [voter] challenge were found to be ineligible based upon a challenger’s use of a program. But this is not what the NVRA says, and in the case of plaintiff Earl Ferguson, this is the precise basis upon which his [voter] challenge was rejected.”

The suit seeks, in part, a writ of mandamus “declaring defendants have violated well-settled federal and state law; to enjoin defendants from further violating state and federal law, and to compel by way of mandamus relief each defendant named in this action to fulfill their express, non-discretionary duties as public elections officials in the State of Georgia.”

Multiple requests for comment to plaintiffs' counsel went unanswered.

Peach Tree Times has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Secretary of State’s office for Fulton County voter rolls, including their list of potentially ineligible voters for the county to notify. 

A FOIA request was also submitted to the FCDRE asking for the same records along with the organization's status in notifying the voters on that same list.

The climate in Georgia with respect to election integrity has been at a fever pitch since the 2020 Presidential Election and remains so in the lead-up to the November election. 

The Associated Press reported in June that conservative activists were advocating for the use of artificial intelligence-powered software to more quickly purge invalid registrations from voter rolls. Opponents of the concept say that voter protection and transparency associated with hearings for the challenge process would disappear, if that method were to be put into practice.

That advocacy, and the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, came on the heels of a bill passed by Republican lawmakers in Georgia earlier this year, which would allow the removal of people from the voting rolls through challenges to voter eligibility.