Registered voters rejected in Atlanta mayor's race

By Jeffry Scott

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

About a dozen voters in southwest Fulton County complained they couldn’t vote because their addresses were not in the county election registration system, said Fulton County election official Mark Henderson, who confirmed the glitch Tuesday afternoon.

“We can’t go against the documentation we have in the system,” said Henderson, who met late Tuesday afternoon with officials representing the Lisa Borders campaign, and Alisa Owens Moore, who lives at 215 Stratton Place Way, an address that is in the city of Atlanta but not according to the county’s database.

The problem: Moore’s address is recorded with the Georgia Department of Driver Services as 215 Stratton Place. That address, a few blocks away from Stratton Place Way, is outside the city of Atlanta and part of unincorporated Fulton County.

So, when Moore tried to vote Tuesday morning for Lisa Borders for mayor, the computer would only let her cast a ballot for races outside the city. She complained, but poll workers couldn’t fix the problem. So she contacted the Borders campaign, and they took the issue to the county election board.

“My address has too many letters for me to put on the Georgia Department of Driver Services form,” said an angry Moore. “So I get my tax bill, but I can’t vote? I’m not going to pay my taxes if I can’t vote. Now you know why people don’t vote.”

Henderson said even filling out a provisional ballot would not solve the problem, because that ballot would still be checked against the incomplete address in the voter registration system.

The problem may have stemmed from the city of Atlanta’s 2007 annexation of the part of the county where Moore lives. Henderson said it may take the intervention of state election officials to get Moore’s vote counted.

“Right now, we’re just trying to figure this out,” he said. He could not provide the number of voters who may be at addresses in the newly annexed part of the city that are not recognized as city of Atlanta by the election board computers and therefore can’t vote.