In first meeting since Trump win, Georgia election board defers to Legislature to implement plans
Georgia’s State Election Board voted Monday to request state lawmakers pass legislation next year making voter lists readily available to the public before and after elections.
Board members have decided to forward their recommendations to the state Legislature rather than launch their own rulemaking process, which has recently resulted in several of their initiatives successfully challenged in courts.
The controversial election board met for the first time since President-elect Donald Trump defeated Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia and six other swing states on Nov. 5. Several of Georgia’s most outspoken critics of the way counties tally votes attended Monday’s meeting before the election board, which had become ground zero in the heated debates over election rules proposals pushed by Republicans and Trump’s allies.
Monday’s five-hour meeting was shorter, more sparsely attended, and less contentious than recent meetings before the election. Previously, three Republican board members had rushed to set up new election procedures in time for the 2024 general election.
Court orders prevented several rules from being enforced in this year’s election, a victory for critics who argued changes to certifying results and hand counting ballots could disrupt elections administration.
The Georgia Supreme Court has agreed to review the legality of the contested rules, including whether the State Election Board exceeded its authority by passing election law that should instead be passed by the state Legislature.
On Monday, Georgia election board members Janelle King, Janice Johnston and Rick Jeffares, who were praised at an Atlanta rally by Trump as “pit bulls” for victory, asked state lawmakers to pass legislation which would require each county to make publicly available a list of all eligible voters during and after every election.
Fulton County resident Lucia Frazier agreed to withdraw her two rules petitions in favor of having the board recommend that legislators take up the matter.
She proposed mandating that counties make a publicly available updated registered voter list ahead of an election, which would be updated until Election Day.
Frazier said she also wants state and county election officials to create an accessible database of everyone who voted during an election. Those files should contain the names of every voter, a copy of their voter ID, precinct, and check-in time, and the records must be available for two years after the election to anyone who requests them.
Frazier said she saw that during early voting Georgia Tech students had to wait for poll workers to confirm their registration because their names had not been updated on electronic poll devices.
Moreover, Frazier expressed frustration with the inability to obtain a prompt response to open records requests and the expense of getting lists of eligible voters from county and state election officials.
According to Frazier, in order to have a truly auditable election, a certified list of electors needs to be available before voting starts, and updated regularly throughout.
King said she heard similar complaints about people’s names not showing up on the poll pads during this election cycle. She moved to recommend the Georgia Assembly pass legislation making voter lists public and providing funding to defray costs for people who request the records.
“I have to add that I have major concerns about the amount of money we’re charging for documents that’s supposed to be readily available to the public,” King said. “I feel like it disenfranchises candidates. It disenfranchises voters.”
Democratic Election Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal said that publishing supplemental lists of eligible voters during an election could impose an administrative burden on counties. She stressed the need for a better understanding of this burden before making legislative recommendations.
Johnston said two things are essential for election integrity: knowing who is eligible to vote and who voted.
“I think we all agree that these are the basics of holding an election and administering election,” Johnston said. “There’s nothing secret about this. There’s nothing proprietary about it. This should be available to the counties, to the superintendents, to the candidates, to the campaigns.”
Tindall Ghazal said that because Georgia’s voter registration deadline is based on when the paper application is postmarked in the mail, it led to some counties still processing thousands of voter registrations after early voting was underway.
“I think it’s a huge problem that there was such a large backlog in some of these counties to process the registrations,” she said. “I need to have a better understanding of the administrative burden that we’re adding to the counties for posting these lists on a daily basis on top of everything else that they’re doing during an election.”
This story was provided by WABE content sharing partner the Georgia Recorder.
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