Allegations of fraud detailed as groups protest investigation

Odd paper forms. Similar-looking signatures. Phone calls and letters telling voters to re-register for Georgia’s hotly contested Nov. 4 election.

Local elections officials on Thursday detailed dozens of complaints from residents about voter registration applications submitted by a Democratic-backed group now under state investigation, even as the issue bloomed into one of access and campaigns' efforts to get voters to the polls.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp opened the inquiry this week, but it is unclear how widespread the problem is. The founder of the group in question, the New Georgia Project, identified fewer than 25 voter applications as part of the investigation. State officials, however, have repeatedly refused to give an exact number except to say any case of fraud was one too many.

The case comes amid a ratcheting up of rhetoric from both sides about voting in Georgia. In addition to Kemp’s highly publicized probe, two additional counties announced Thursday that they would join in a historic effort to hold early voting this fall on Sundays.

Civil rights groups and clergy members managed to applaud the move by Fulton and Lowndes counties to join DeKalb County in offering Sunday voting while also hand-delivering a letter of protest Thursday to Kemp's office about his treatment of the voter registration project in question.

State House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, founded the project in November. The group so far has registered 85,000 people, although not all those applications have been processed.

“Good intentions are not an excuse to commit fraud,” Kemp, a Republican, said Thursday in a statement. He did not personally accept the letter’s delivery.

“This investigation has nothing to do with partisan politics,” Kemp said. “Anyone who breaks our election laws will be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

According to local officials, the investigation involves dozens of residents who questioned the group’s approach, suspicious forms and procedural problems. Overall, 11 counties reported complaints now included in the inquiry: Bartow, Butts, Coweta, DeKalb, Effingham, Gwinnett, Henry, Muscogee, Tatnall, Terrell and Toombs.

“They were quoting laws that didn’t exist,” said Joseph Kirk, Bartow County’s elections supervisor. “Trying to pressure people into registering to vote right then and there — the things we’ve tried to discourage.”

Janet Shellnutt, Henry County’s elections director, said the applications used by the group “look differently than the regular applications that come from the Secretary of State’s Office.”

“You can definitely tell the difference,” she said. “We were receiving a lot that it looked like the same person’s handwriting and signature. There was just too much similarity.”

State officials said Thursday that the inquiry is expected to involve more than the 25 forms Abrams’ claimed.

But supporters of the group said the widespread attention given to the probe, as well as comments by the state's GOP leadership against the move toward Sunday voting, made them question how serious Kemp and other leaders were about guaranteeing residents access to a fundamental right.

Sunday voting is not a new phenomenon: Three states (Alaska, Illinois and Maryland) explicitly allow it, and Ohio is in the midst of a court case that would re-establish Sunday early voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Georgia, California, Florida and Nevada leave it up to local officials — all of who previously stuck to Saturdays, including the one mandatory Saturday polling day as required by state law.

“As a Georgia citizen, I’m concerned in this era when we do not have the full protection of the (federal) Voting Rights Act, someone decided this was a good time to play games with someone’s ability to get registered,” said the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, who has been acting as spokesman for the New Georgia Project. “Georgia sadly seems to be undermining the rights of ordinary citizens to vote.”

Warnock was among more than a dozen other civil rights and clergy leaders who signed the letter. In it, they said they “sincerely hope” Kemp was not trying to “silence our voices and thwart efforts to register and engage minority voters in Georgia.”

Abrams said the group’s overarching goal is nonpartisan — voters in Georgia do not register by party. The goal, in essence, is to increase votes regardless of which candidates are on the ballot.

Still, it painted a target on those candidates she supports, including Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Michelle Nunn. A spokeswoman for her Republican opponent, businessman David Perdue, immediately noted Abrams’ role as an informal adviser and fundraiser for Nunn and how Abrams has openly voiced a need for Democrats to register more voters to support Nunn’s bid.

Abrams’ group has until Tuesday to respond to a subpoena issued by Kemp. She said the group is exploring its legal options.