Fulton County has erroneously notified scores of residents that they might not be eligible to vote because they were convicted felons.
Fulton officials blamed the problem on faulty information obtained from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. The state says it’s the county’s responsibility to verify the list of potential felons.
Fulton Registrations Manager Ralph Jones said the 166 affected people will be allowed to vote, although the county may not notify them until Friday — just a few days before Tuesday’s municipal elections.
In a letter delivered Tuesday, state Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, asked Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp for an explanation of the problem and called the move a “voter suppression tactic.” In a separate letter, Fort asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to send federal election monitors to Georgia next Tuesday, citing other recent problems attributed to the state’s new election software.
Kemp’s spokesman, Jared Thomas, said it’s Fort’s right to communicate with the attorney general.
“We are focused on the municipal elections currently under way,” Thomas said.
The Secretary of State’s Office regularly provides counties with lists of possible felons who might not be eligible to vote. The names are obtained by matching the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and other data against the state’s voter registration database.
Fulton usually notifies voters of the finding without double-checking the state’s work and seldom gets more than one or two complaints, Jones said. This month, the county received 42 phone calls and reviewed the felon data after mailing the notices.
It found 166 cases where voters were mistakenly identified as felons, Jones said. The notices told voters they had been identified as possible felons and asked them to attend hearings and provide information that could show whether they are, in fact, felons.
Those who do not attend the hearings are usually deleted from the county’s voter rolls. But those incorrectly notified this month will not be deleted, Jones said.
DeKalb County Elections Director Maxine Daniels said her office also has had problems with the Secretary of State Office’s felon data. She attributed the problems to the state’s new election software, ElectioNet.
Daniels, however, said her office verified the data and did not send erroneous felon notices.
“We know there are problems,” she said, “but we’re trying to do things to alleviate it.”
Fulton Elections Director Richard Barron said it has been the Fulton elections board’s policy to send the felon notices without checking the data. But since learning of the faulty notices, the board has decided to review the data before sending notices for the next three months.
It’s the second time this month that the state has been blamed for an elections glitch.
Fulton County was late mailing about 24,000 precinct cards to Atlanta and East Point voters, citing faulty data obtained by the state agency. Cobb County cited similar problems when it was late with 15,000 to 20,000 notices. DeKalb and Gwinnett counties reported finding data problems before notices were printed.
Fort cited the precinct card problems in seeking federal election monitors. On Tuesday, he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the erroneous felon notices are further evidence of problems with state elections.
“Whether it’s intentional or unintentional, it’s voter suppression,” Fort said of the felony notices.
Thomas, the secretary of state’s spokesman, did not respond to Fort’s accusation of voter suppression.
He said the state’s system typically identifies possible felons using many potential data matches in both the new and old election software. He said it’s the counties’ job to research and verify the information before removing people from the voting rolls.
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