VICE: The Center of the Fight Over Whose Votes Count Is in Georgia

VICE: The Center of the Fight Over Whose Votes Count Is in Georgia

When combined, though, these problems reflect a slurry of confusion, incompetence, and neglect that has the same effect as wrongdoing and, more importantly, is plausibly deniable, especially when the responsibility for running elections is split between the state and the counties. “They each point the finger at one another,” said Sara Henderson, the Executive Director of Common Cause Georgia, a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization that also sued the state during the midterms. “But, neither one will be held culpable or accountable for running the elections process.”

One year ago today, Michelle Cofer drove to Ferguson Elementary School in Gwinnett County, Georgia, while her husband stayed at home to watch their 3-year-old. When she got to the school, the line to vote in the 2018 midterm elections was longer than it had ever been in Rockdale, the nearby county she’d moved from two years earlier, but Cofer is a regular voter and was determined to wait it out. 

In fact, thousands of voters had their provisionals withheld or rejected in Georgia during the 2018 midterms, which is especially troubling considering that these ballots are meant to be used as a failsafe, the last line of defense before disenfranchisement. Instead, they were, at best, used to cover up systemic problems, of which there were many: unsecured election databases, incorrect voting rolls, unreliable voting machines, undelivered absentee ballots, and suspiciously high rates of ballot fatigue. At worst, they required voters to essentially vote twice to have their ballot counted.

At the same time, policies like the state’s “exact match” policy aren’t necessarily suppressive in and of themselves. They do, however, generate enough headlines about registration “purges” to discourage some citizens from even attempting to vote. In this regard, no single facet of Georgia’s election system is unimpeachable evidence of orchestrated voter suppression—not the provisional ballots, closed polling sites, long lines, rejected absentees, impounded voting machines, digital vulnerabilities, or database glitches.

When combined, though, these problems reflect a slurry of confusion, incompetence, and neglect that has the same effect as wrongdoing and, more importantly, is plausibly deniable, especially when the responsibility for running elections is split between the state and the counties. “They each point the finger at one another,” said Sara Henderson, the Executive Director of Common Cause Georgia, a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization that also sued the state during the midterms. “But, neither one will be held culpable or accountable for running the elections process.” …

When asked whether the high rate of rejected provisional ballots suggested that there was a problem with the voting system, Harvey said no. “If there were people that were properly registered whose provisional ballots were not counted, I’m confident we would have seen some type of outcry,” he said. “I’m not aware of any kind of outcry like that.” After being reminded that he issued a declaration in the Common Cause lawsuit, which made exactly those allegations, he said he still didn’t recall specifics. In an email a week later, he clarified that he meant that a large number of PR provisionals weren’t later found to be eligible.