Fulton Voters Wrongly Identified As Convicted Felons
Scores of Fulton County voters were told they might not be able to vote after they were incorrectly identified as convicted felons – yet another registration snag for the county in the lead up to next week’s election.As heard on the radio
Fulton says 166 voters were wrongly notified in early October due to faulty information sent from the Secretary of State’s office, which sends out a list of possible new felons every month to each county.
Spokesman Jared Thomas says it’s up to the counties to verify that list.
“It has been this way for years and years and years,” says Thomas. “This is not a new process at all. In this case, Fulton County did not verify the list they received from the state, and that’s where the error occurred.”
Fulton Elections Director Richard Barron says in the past the county hasn’t verified that data, but will start doing so now.
“We’ve never had this issue come up before, and then one month there’s a major problem,” Barron says. “Going forward, we can’t take it for granted that the list that we’re getting from SOS is accurate.”
Barron says in the past the county would receive one or two complaints from voters, but this time received 42 calls. That prompted the elections board to investigate the issue, which revealed the errors.
Barron is unsure if the problem stems from the state’s new voter registration software – which produced errors on thousands of registration cards.
He says the county is sending out a letter to affected voters Friday – but that they shouldn’t have a problem on Election Day.
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