The State Election Board is launching an investigation into allegations that local election boards in eight counties are routinely thwarting citizen activists’ challenges of thousands of voter registrations.

The five-member board voted 3-0 Monday to direct Mike Coan, the board’s executive director, to look into how challenges are being handled in Athens-Clarke, Bibb, Chatham, Cobb, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties and report back to the board at its next meeting Oct. 8.

The board’s three Republican members approved the investigation after DeKalb County Republican Chair Marci McCarthy said 5,215 voters are on the rolls in her county who are not eligible to vote. She said the vast majority of those voters – 4,861 – have not had any contact with local election officials for more than a decade, while the rest either are registered at non-residential addresses or have moved to a different jurisdiction and voted there.

“When ineligible voters remain on the voter rolls, it increases the likelihood of those persons voting in our county, which dilutes the legitimate votes of our citizens,” McCarthy said. “We have some of the dirtiest voter rolls in the state, in the country.”

The General Assembly’s Republican majorities passed election reform legislation this year making it easier to file mass voter challenges. Senate Bill 189 established the standard for challenging a voter’s registration “probable cause.”

 Two years ago, Republican activists filed thousands of voter challenges in Democratic-leaning counties only to see local election boards dismiss the vast majority as baseless.

While Republicans argued that making it easier to file challenges would clean up the voter rolls by removing ineligible voters, Democrats maintained Republicans would use the legislation to get rid of eligible voters in Democratic counties.

On Monday, the board’s lone Democrat – Sara Tindall Ghazal – said Republicans who believe Democratic counties are blocking efforts to clean their voter rolls should take their case to court. In fact, DeKalb Republicans have filed a lawsuit to force the county’s election board to enforce the voter eligibility requirements.

“That is the proper venue,” Ghazal said.

Republican board member Janice Johnston, who made the motion to launch an investigation, said some counties are guilty of “blanket refusals” to accept voter challenges.

“This is an opportunity to put the counties on notice that we are aware of what is happening,” added GOP board member Janelle King, who joined Johnston in voting to authorize the investigation.

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