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Judge blocks residency challenges to 4,000 Georgia voters
by The Associated Press
Last Updated Dec 29, 2020 at 11:14 am EDT
COLUMBUS, Ga. A federal judge ordered local election officials in Georgia to allow voting by more than 4,000 people whose eligibility was being challenged ahead of next week’s runoff elections for the U.S. Senate.
U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner blocked election boards in Ben Hill County and Muscogee County, which includes Columbus, from forcing large numbers of voters to prove their residency before casting ballots in the runoffs. The judge ruled that denying so many voters access to the ballot so close to an election would likely violate the National Voter Registration Act.
The former Republican congressman argues it ‘seems shocking’ that ‘two radical candidates’ are creating tight races in the state.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accused U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner of undermining the rule of law Tuesday after she ordered two county boards of elections to reinstate more than 4,000 people from voter rolls ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election.
The ruling from Gardner, the sister of former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, blocked the counties from invalidating the voters because change-of-address data raised questions about their current residency. Raffensperger said Gardner’s decision violated the counties’ rights to pursue challenges meant to uphold election security.
Jerry LambeDec 29th, 2020, 12:08 pm
U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner
A federal judge on Monday evening sided with a voting rights organization seeking to prevent two counties from purging thousands of “targeted voters” from their voting rolls less than two weeks ahead of the state’s highly consequential Senate runoff elections.
The controversy stems from the election boards in Ben Hill County and Muscogee County voting to remove the names of more than 4,000 individuals whom they claimed had moved out of state based on unverified data obtained from the National Change of Address (NCOA) registry. “Targeted voters” those whose names appeared on the NCOA registry list attempting to vote in-person would only be permitted to cast provisional ballots, while those seeking to vote via mail would have to provide additional evidence of residency before being sent a ballot.