The State Election Board Tuesday referred an investigation of Fulton County’s botched 2012 elections to the Attorney General for further legal proceedings and possible penalties.
The county faces possible fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars in connection with its mishandling of the 2012 general and primary elections. An investigation report by Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office, obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, accused Fulton of numerous violations of state election rules. Many of the violations involved failing to properly document or secure about 9,600 provisional ballots cast in last year’s general election.
The report found Fulton’s failure to hire enough temporary workers to process voter registrations led it to miss a deadline for entering many registrations before the general election. As a result, an unusually high number of Fulton voters were relegated to printed registration lists distributed at county precincts. That led to long lines and confusion at some polling places on Election Day, the investigation found.
The Secretary of State also found redistricting errors that caused an unknown number of people to vote in the wrong state House or Senate elections during the July 2012 primary.
County officials have said the state’s allegations are exaggerated. They say part of the blame for the lag in processing registrations lies with the Secretary of State. And they say that while some people may have voted in the wrong primary races those votes weren’t enough to make a difference in the outcome.
Check myajc.com for more details.
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