Inquiry into allegations of voter registration fraud to be made public

The true scope of an investigation into alleged voter registration fraud will be unveiled Wednesday in the first public airing of a politically fraught dispute between a Democratic-backed group and the state's top elections official, Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

But it will likely be weeks, if not longer, before the inquiry is settled, with both civil and criminal charges possible. For now, both sides agreed Tuesday to negotiate an extension of Kemp’s original subpoena, which he issued last week and which leaders of the New Georgia Project called “unnecessary, overly broad, unduly burdensome and harassing.”

"What we want to understand is what we've been accused of and what we are responsible for," said state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, who founded the group in November with a goal of registering "more than 800,000 eligible African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans who are not registered to vote right here in Georgia."

The group left open the possibility of a lawsuit, although it has concentrated negotiations on narrowing Kemp’s inquiry. It has also pushed to get an accounting of thousands of unprocessed registration applications, although that task is largely the responsibility of local elections officials.

Kemp through his office declined to comment and is expected to let his presentation Wednesday to the Georgia Election Board be his first extensive comments on the issue. The special meeting starts at 3 p.m. at the state Capitol. Board members decided earlier this week to move up discussion about the case ahead of their regular meeting, which is scheduled for a day after the state’s voter registration deadline Oct. 6.

Abrams has identified fewer than 25 forms out of 85,000 submitted so far that are involved in the investigation. State officials, however, have repeatedly refused to give an exact number. National experts have said it is not unusual to have some forms questioned, and that fraud most often is the work of individuals and not part of a coordinated effort by an organization.

The group’s response to the original subpoena was legally due Tuesday.

“Fraud requires an effort on behalf of the project to intentionally deceive the secretary of state and his office. They have not proven that,” said the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, who is among more than a dozen civil rights and religious leaders who have questioned the timing of Kemp’s inquiry.

Prominent Democrats have also weighed in, including Tuesday afternoon when Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed called the inquiry a form of voter intimidation.

Among the complaints Kemp said he has received were applications with inaccurate or false information, applications completed or "forged" after phone conversations between voters and representatives of the group, and voters being told they had to re-register to vote.

According to Abrams, the group contacted Kemp’s office several months ago about the voter drive and has been in a “working relationship” for the past three months. She has also said the organization flagged problems with some of the forms it had collected. State law requires those forms to be turned in to local county registrars anyway and vetted by the state office.

“We do not have the capacity nor are we legally allowed to verify a form,” Abrams said, adding the group fired workers who had “quality control” problems brought to its attention. “I would say human error in hiring is part of doing business. If they can show a single company that has never hired a bad person, I would love to invest in that company.”

Twelve counties have reported complaints now included in the inquiry: Bartow, Butts, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Effingham, Gwinnett, Henry, Muscogee, Tatnall, Terrell and Toombs.