DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County and Fulton County will meet to consider an election challenge Tuesday afternoon to the eligibility of an undetermined number of voters.
The DeKalb board of registration and elections will conduct a special meeting at 1 p.m. over Zoom. Fulton's will meet virtually at 4 p.m.
The meetings follows similar meetings in Cobb County and Gwinnett County, where election boards have dismissed challenges against the eligibility of thousands of voters.
A Texas-based organization, True The Vote, says it is bringing challenges to more than 360,000 voters in all of Georgia's 159 counties.
The challenges have generally relied on National Change of Address records to allege the registered voters no longer reside in Georgia or in their county of registration.
They're being brought under §21-2-230(a) of the Georgia Code, a statute providing for bringing challenges against individual voters in advance of an election.
They mostly rely on §21-2-217(4) and (5) of Georgia's laws, which stipulate that:
- If a person removes to another state with the intention of making it such person's residence, such person shall be considered to have lost such person's residence in this state
- If a person removes to another state with the intention of remaining there an indefinite time and making such state such person's place of residence, such person shall be considered to have lost such person's residence in this state, notwithstanding that such person may intend to return at some indefinite future period.
So far, however, county boards have determined the NCOA databases presented in the challenges are not enough on their own to establish cause for challenging the voters.
Attorneys have noted without specific details about the individual circumstances of voters, people on the NCOA lists could easily be out of state for temporary work or caring for a loved one through the COVID-19 pandemic, for example.
Attorneys have also cautioned that hearing these challenges could come close to running afoul of federal legislation that mandates no significant voter list maintenance within 90 days of an election.