Most challenge ballots substantiated

Dozens of ballots cast in the presidential election in metro Atlanta won’t be counted because of challenges over citizenship.

On Thursday and Friday, metro area elections boards held hearings to decide what to do with “challenge” ballots from voters whose citizenship was questioned.

Voters whose ballots were thrown out did not present documents proving citizenship.

Georgia has instituted a controversial system of verifying citizenship of newly registered voters. The procedure has been questioned by the U.S. Department of Justice and is the subject of a lawsuit.

About 4,770 voters in Georgia were informed last week they would have to vote on a paper “challenge” ballot on Election Day because their citizenship was in question.

It was up to the voters to clear up the matter with their county elections office this week in order for their challenged vote to count.

In Gwinnett County, 300 people used the paper “challenge” ballot because the state was unsure whether they were citizens. Of those, 192 returned to the county elections office this week to bring documents proving they are citizens, said Lynn Ledford, Gwinnett’s elections director.

But 108 voters did not return. Gwinnett’s board of elections held a hearing Friday morning to give those voters one last chance to prove their citizenship. No one attended, so the board will not count their votes.

“We hate to have to do this,” said Joan Zellner, vice chairman of the Gwinnett County Board of Registration and Elections.

In Cobb County, 227 people cast challenge ballots on Election Day. Of those, 161 returned to furnish their documents, said Beth Kish, Cobb county’s voter registration manager. Many people faxed in proof of their citizenship status, she said. “To have this many cleared up is fantastic,” Kish said.

But 51 voters who cast challenge ballots had not provided proof of citizenship when the county held a hearing on Friday. Those votes will not be counted.

Georgia’s secretary of state verifies citizenship by checking voter registration application information against records held by the Georgia Department of Driver Services.

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel has said only newly registered voters were checked, or those who changed an essential piece of information on their voter registration card, including name, date of birth, driver’s license number or Social Security number.

In DeKalb County it looked as if hundreds of people might have fallen into the noncitizen category, but on Friday, the county dumped only 39 ballots.

In DeKalb, 66 voters cast challenge ballots on Election Day. In the two following days, 27 of those voters came to the elections office, proving their right and ensuring their votes were counted, said DeKalb Election Director Linda Latimore.

“We had naturalization papers, passports, birth certificates, the whole lot,” Latimore said of the documents that proved citizenship.

When the Georgia secretary of state gave DeKalb an updated list of voters who were not thought to be citizens last fall, there were more than 700 names.

Many of those, though, were flagged incorrectly, from something as simple as transposed numbers on their drive’s licenses or because they had common names, Latimore said.

Some of those red-flagged had even been registered for 25 years and were able to bring in their old voter ID cards, which showed their place of birth.

None of the Election Day voters in DeKalb whose ballots were challenged tried to pass muster with false documents, which would have indicated an attempt at fraud.

Instead, no one showed up Friday afternoon at the DeKalb election office training room to bring the right documents. The 39 bright pink envelopes, showing they were challenged, will end up being tossed.

Fulton County had 23 challenge ballots on Election Day, elections officials said Friday. Thirteen people returned to show their documents this week, and on Friday no one showed at a hearing. Officials said they will throw out 10 ballots.

The Clayton County Board of Elections and Registration voted unanimously Friday morning to accept two citizenship challenge ballots after voters provided the appropriate identification.

The board voted unanimously to reject four ballots from voters who did not provide identification by the deadline.

Staff writers Kent Miles, Pat Fox, April Hunt and Megan Matteucci contributed to this article.