The annual legislative session for the Georgia General Assembly recently concluded, and with it a chance to correct one of the largest issues facing Georgia voters and elections today — mass voter challenges.

Having been at the center of the controversy, Georgia knows all too well former President Trump’s response to his 2020 election defeat, and with it a subset of Republican officeholders and political influencers has been pushing the false idea that a massive, coordinated effort to defraud the electoral system was responsible for Trump’s loss. If that were true, and voter fraud were found to be running rampant throughout Georgia, it would be absolutely imperative that we do something about it.

The only problem is that those claims are completely false. They’re a lie, and a big one, with massive consequences for the trust that some Republican voters have in our electoral system; because of that lie, past sessions of the General Assembly moved forward with solutions in search of problems.

Our state election infrastructure is reeling from the last few years of legislation targeting their work. Tens of thousands of voter registrations were challenged by private citizens last year under a novel provision passed by the General Assembly in 2021 that allows anyone to officially question the eligibility of an unlimited number of voters.

The voters affected by these challenges largely came from three groups: people experiencing homelessness, who still reside in Georgia and have the same rights we all do, college students whose voting status is protected under state law, and members of the United States Military, who often have a temporary change of station in the service of protecting our rights.

Under existing law, these mass voter challenges are wildly out of hand. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — who, remember, is a Republican — practically begged the legislature to find a way to curtail the practice. He said the challenges were a way to “gum up the works” and created incredible stress and pressure on local elections offices, who had to respond quickly to each individual challenge.

In Gwinnett County where I often work, there were 37,000 challenges filed in one single day during last year’s election, and all of them were thrown out. All of them. Again, the challenge process seems like a solution in search of a problem.

Despite Raffensperger’s pleas to curtail the practice, there was an attempt during this year’s legislative session to actually expand the ability to file mass voter challenges. Senate Bill 221 would have, among many other things, allowed potential challengers to use the incredibly unreliable USPS change of address form database as probable cause for a challenge. This legislation would have had a disproportionate impact on our troops and our student population, the best, bravest, and brightest that the State of Georgia has to offer.

I applaud the Assembly for refusing to advance Senate Bill 221–this was a win for democracy–but the dangerous falsehoods that spurred the mass voter challenge legislation in the first place are still out there prompting Georgians concerned about non-existent voter fraud to attempt to disenfranchise their fellow citizens. As long as those sentiments are being stirred, holding the status quo is not enough. Next session, the Assembly must act to protect the interests of Georgia voters and the Georgia electoral process by either raising the threshold to initiate voter challenges.

Joey McKinnon
Director, Georgia Values Action