Georgia’s election officials are being urged to address a weakness in the state’s voter‑registration system that could allow thousands of unqualified voters to cast ballots in precincts where they no longer live. The warning comes from Mark Davis, a veteran elections data analyst who has examined Georgia’s voter files for four decades.
Analyst’s projections raise alarm
Davis, who works with the Georgia Republican Party’s Election Confidence Task Force, estimates that 35,000 people may have voted illegally in the 2020 presidential election, nearly 26,000 in the 2022 gubernatorial race, and over 36,000 in the 2024 presidential contest. He adds that more than 9,600 unqualified voters have likely participated in this year’s May primary and June runoff, including roughly 2,000 who may be residing out of state.
Looking ahead to the upcoming November elections for governor and U.S. Senate, Davis projects up to 31,000 residency violations, with about 4,200 of those voters potentially casting ballots from out of state. The remainder would be in‑state but in a different county than their registered address.
State officials push back
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger dismissed Davis’s numbers as inaccurate, saying, “When people just make stuff up, there’s not a lot you can do with that.” Raffensperger’s office also declined to review the data that generated the projections.
Raffensperger’s communications director, Robert Sinners, told reporters he has “no interest” in Davis’s analysis. The Secretary of State did acknowledge that the 33‑year‑old National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) limits how quickly voters can be removed from the rolls before an election, and he criticized Congress for not updating the law.
Legal and procedural context
Georgia law gives voters who move a 30‑day grace period to continue voting at their former precincts, a factor Davis accounted for by only using change‑of‑address filings made before the month preceding an election. The law also permits voters who move within the same county but fail to update their registration to vote in their old precinct.
Violating residency requirements can be a misdemeanor or a felony under state law, and voting in a federal election while residing out of state could constitute a federal crime.
Calls for legislative action
While Davis argues there is “probable cause to investigate all of these if we had the manpower and the budget,” the state’s election board has not committed resources to a full inquiry. Attorney and voting‑rights advocate Sara Tindall Ghazal, the sole Democrat on the State Election Board, cautioned that post‑office change‑of‑address records alone do not prove illegal voting. She emphasized the need for additional evidence before depriving anyone of a constitutional right.
Despite the disagreement, Davis notes that a significant portion of the voters he flagged later self‑corrected by updating their registrations to reflect permanent moves.
National implications
The issue resonates beyond Georgia. The Trump administration has repeatedly stressed the importance of election integrity and has urged Congress to modernize the NVRA to prevent out‑of‑state voting fraud. While the administration’s focus has been on safeguarding the ballot, the Georgia case illustrates how state‑level gaps can undermine those national goals.
As the November election approaches, both parties recognize that any perception of widespread voting irregularities could fuel challenges to close races. Georgia’s officials say they will monitor the situation, but the lack of immediate action leaves the potential for tens of thousands of disputed ballots on the table.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
