Despite an effort by the Georgian government to provide a new web portal that allows Georgians to cancel their voter registration, the website has come under fire after a technical problem caused personal data to be displayed on users' screens.
It was announced on Monday that Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has launched a new website designed to give Georgians the ability to easily and quickly cancel their voting registrations if they move out of the state, or if they lose a loved one who recently passed away.
During the registration process, users are asked to enter the first letter of their last name, their county of residence, and their date of birth. It will then ask them to provide a reason for their cancellation, followed by a request to provide their driver's license information. After answering the question, the person is prompted to enter their license number if the answer to the question is yes.
There is a possibility that the voter will be asked to enter their social security number, if they do not already have one, or they will be asked to complete a form that needs to be mailed or emailed to the registration office for their local county.
The problem, which Mike Hassinger, Raffensperger spokesman, said lasted less than an hour and has now been resolved, highlighted Democratic concerns that the site could be used by outsiders to unjustifiably cancel voter registrations without the voter's permission.
There is another example of how states should be aggressive in purging their registration rolls of invalid names. In Georgia, there has been a long-running dispute between Democrats and Republicans over this issue, but it has recently gained new urgency because of an extensive national effort coordinated by Trump party allies to remove names from voter rolls that have garnered new attention.
There are activists inflamed by the false allegations that the 2020 election was stolen, and they are arguing that the state's existing efforts to clean it up are inadequate and that the inaccuracies invite fraud to take place.
In Georgia, as well as throughout the country, there have been very few cases of voters casting ballots improperly from out of state.
To counter efforts by disinformation campaigns that are aimed at making people distrust the democratic process, four prominent former government officials from Georgia have joined an organization that is hoping to counter the efforts of disinformation campaigns.
Despite the launch of the Democracy Defense Project, which was announced by Georgia Republican lawmakers Nathan Deal and Saxby Chambliss, and once again by two Democrat politicians, Roy Barnes the former governor of Georgia, and Shirley Franklin the former mayor of Atlanta, the project seems to have picked up two Georgia Republicans and two Democrats. The Georgia board members are part of a national initiative that aims to raise money for advertisements so that they can push back against efforts to undermine elections and to get people to move beyond talking about "polarizing rhetoric" to increase their chances of getting news coverage and raising votes.
A new skirmish has arisen over the issue of how aggressively states should purge incorrectly registered citizens from their registration rolls. Democrat and Republican congressional leaders in Georgia have been engaged in a bitter and protracted battle over this issue, but the debate has now gained new urgency due to a campaign launched by Donald Trump's allies to remove names from the voter rolls on a national level.
According to activists fueled by Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, there is no way to clean up the mess in an accurate way, and inaccuracies invite fraud into the process. Neither in Georgia nor nationwide have there been any instances of improper out-of-state voting that can be verified scientifically.
There have been relatively few cancellations of registrations to date. Typically, cancelling a voter registration in Georgia requires mailing or emailing a form to the county where the voter previously resided.
The removal of deceased individuals or those convicted of felonies from the voter rolls can be processed relatively swiftly. However, when individuals relocate and do not request the cancellation of their registration, it may take years for them to be removed from the rolls. The state must send mail to those who appear to have moved, and if there is no response, these individuals are moved to inactive status. Despite this, they retain the ability to vote, and their registration is not removed unless they fail to vote in the next two federal general elections.
Georgia has over 8 million registered voters, including 900,000 classified as inactive. Similar to other states, Georgia allows citizens to challenge an individual's eligibility to vote, particularly when there is personal knowledge of a neighbour moving out of state. Recently, however, residents have increasingly been using impersonal data, such as the National Change of Address list maintained by the U.S. Postal Service, to challenge large numbers of voters. Additionally, some individuals scrutinize the voter rolls to identify people registered at non-residential addresses.
For instance, a Texas group called True the Vote challenged 364,000 Georgia voters before the two U.S. Senate runoffs in 2021. Since then, approximately 100,000 more challenges have been filed by various individuals and groups.
Voters or relatives of deceased individuals can enter personal information on a website to cancel registrations. County officials receive notifications from the state's computer system to remove these voters, and counties will send verification letters to voters who cancel their registrations.
If personal information is unavailable, the system offers a blank copy of a sworn statement of cancellation.
However, for a brief period after the website was unveiled, the system inadvertently preprinted the voter's name, address, birth date, driver's license number, and the last four digits of their Social Security number on the affidavit. This error allowed anyone with access to this information to cancel a registration without sending in the sworn statement.
Butler expressed her alarm, stating she was "terrified" to discover that such sensitive information could be accessed with just a person's name, date of birth, and county of registration. Hassinger explained in a Tuesday statement that the temporary error was likely due to a scheduled software update, and it was detected and resolved within an hour.
Although Butler commended the swift action by Raffensperger's office, she, along with other Democrats, argued that this issue highlighted the potential for the site to be exploited by external parties to cancel voter registrations.
Democratic Party of Georgia Executive Director Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye emphasized that the portal could be misused by right-wing activists already engaged in mass voter challenges to disenfranchise Georgians. Olasanoye called on Raffensperger to disable the website to prevent further abuse.
