Automatic voter registration could be in jeopardy in Georgia

Criticism of automatic registration has come from a Republican Party official and a county election director during recent meetings of a House election committee that will recommend changes to state laws this fall.

Paulding County Election Director Deidre Holden told state representatives that Georgians shouldn’t be registered to vote without thinking about it. Through automatic registration, people sign up to vote at driver’s license offices unless they click a button to opt out.

“Something needs to be done in that system so people realize what they’re doing,” Holden said. “I don’t want to see our registration numbers go down, but we also have people who sit here and never vote. They registered and didn’t know they registered.”

When felons inadvertently try to register to vote before their parole sentences are completed, Holden said she’s required to report them to prosecutors, putting them in further legal peril.

A handful of cases of felons registering to vote or actually voting have been heard by the State Election Board in recent years, generally resulting in reprimands.

Election officials routinely check voter lists against felon records and then cancel ineligible registrations.

But Bartow County Election Director Joseph Kirk said automatic registration should be preserved. He said it keeps voters’ addresses updated after they move and prevents problems when people show up at the polls and are told they’re not registered.

Credit: John Spink/AJC

Credit: John Spink/AJC

“We are light-years ahead in terms of not turning people away from voting,” Kirk said. “There may be some extra work for election offices, or some addresses are hard to identify, and some felons that we still need to identify because of the way the process works. But my role, my staff’s role, is to serve the voters, and if it means a little bit of extra work, we’re happy to do it.”

Implemented under Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2016 when he was secretary of state, Georgia voter registrations have soared to 8 million. About 92% of the state’s voting-eligible population are active voters, according to 2024 data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

About half the states provide automatic registration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Georgia Republican Party listed eliminating automatic registration among its priorities, along with banning no-excuse absentee voting, ending open primary elections, reducing early voting to two weeks and other proposals.

“My concerns are driven by folks back home who tell you they’ve got people who don’t understand (the registration process) or they’re felons,” said state Rep. Martin Momtahan, a Republican from Dallas. “Why would we do that? Why would we systematically take folks who have felonies and then put them in a situation where they’re again having to criminally defend themselves?”

State Rep. Saira Draper, a Democrat from Atlanta, said automatic registration allows many eligible Georgians to vote and ensures their information is correct.

“Automatic voter registration has been the single-most effective tool for ensuring the voter rolls are as accurate and up-to-date as possible,” Draper said. “It would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater to allow those concerns to take center focus when the benefits from automatic voter registration are so prevalent.”

The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office recently canceled 471,000 inactive voter registrations, focusing on voters who moved or didn’t participate in recent elections. Records show about 204,000 of them have never voted in Georgia.

The Republican-controlled Georgia General Assembly will decide whether to take up automatic registration or other proposals during the legislative session that begins in January.