Atlanta – Today, while the lawsuit against the Trump-backed Georgia State Election Board’s rule changes on certification was heard, the Georgia Senate Committee on Urban Affairs, chaired by Democratic Senator Donzella James, held a meeting to examine urban counties’ election infrastructure ahead of the 2024 general election. Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo testified at the meeting.

Committee members believe the MAGA Election Board members’ actions and rule changes, which Georgia’s Republican Attorney General warned likely violate the law, will directly harm Georgians’ freedom to vote and have their votes counted, especially folks who live in urban areas.

"I want to thank the Senate Democrats for convening such an important meeting on the critical issue of election infrastructure. Although the meeting was held by Senate Democrats, it’s important to remember, current and former Georgia Republican officials, including Secretary of State Raffensperger, have criticized the board, condemned their actions as overreach, and filed lawsuits against their rules changes. The MAGA Election Board’s reckless 2024 chaos plan will undermine trust in the 2024 election and Governor Kemp continues to refuse to act. Today’s discussions were vital in highlighting the urgent need to safeguard our election from these dangerous changes,” stated Lauren Groh-Wargo, Fair Fight CEO.

See below for Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo’s full testimony from today’s meeting:

Good Morning Chairwoman James and members of the Georgia State Senate Committee on Urban Affairs. My name is Lauren Groh-Wargo and I am the CEO of Fair Fight Action, an organization dedicated to ensuring free and fair elections in Georgia. Since its inception, Fair Fight Action has fought tirelessly to protect and defend our democracy against ever growing attacks on it. I want to thank the committee for holding this important and timely committee hearing on the state of election infrastructure for the metro-Atlanta area as we head into yet another historic election.

Today I am going to provide remarks on two areas of concern when it comes to election infrastructure in Georgia heading into the November Presidential election.

First, I am going to talk about mass voter challenges and the impact they have on voters and election administration. Voter challenges are not a new concept. Voter challenges have historically been used as a weapon to suppress the votes of Black citizens. Georgia has a long history of trying to disenfranchise Black Georgians. The current efforts at disenfranchisement have their roots in the post-Reconstruction era when the State’s leadership invoked fears of voter fraud to justify restrictions on the rights of Black men to vote.

In 2020, during the runoff election for Georgia’s two seats in the United States Senate a right-wing organization, True the Vote, challenged 364,000 voters across the state. After Georgians turned out in record numbers in 2020 and the 2021 runoff, the Georgia State Legislature passed an omnibus anti-voter bill called SB 202. The harms of SB 202 have been on full display ever since its passage and implementation in 2021.

In 2021, as part of the “Election Integrity Act of 2021” (SB 202), rather than curtailing mass challenges such as the True the Vote challenges, the State explicitly authorized a single person to challenge the voter registration status of an unlimited number of voters all at once. The result has been an alarming increase in the number of voters whose registrations are challenged. These mass voter challenges have particularly targeted voters in metro-Atlanta areas like Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, Dekalb, and Forsyth counties. For example, one person single-handedly challenged nearly 10,000 registrations in Fulton County. Looking at a small snapshot of the challenges that have been filed since SB 202 was passed, in 2022, Gwinnett County received nearly 50,000 challenges.

Showcasing the administrative burden and cost on election offices, the Gwinnett County Elections Director said he had to have six to ten people often working 60 to 70 hours per week for a month to get through the voter challenges. This year Gwinnett County received a request challenging nearly 40,000 voters. The time and resources counties have to direct towards these mass voter challenges is time and resources that could be and should be spent on administering elections and supporting voters, but instead counties are having to direct their finite time and scarce resources to investigate frivolous voter challenges.

Because of the sheer number of these challenges, as well as the requirements set by SB 202 requiring counties to hold expedited hearings for some challenges within 10 days of notifying challenged voters, already-stretched county elections offices are forced to deal with significant additional administrative burdens that impede the critical work of running elections — These voter challenges are most often ultimately rejected, but the burden on elections staff is already done

Mass voter challenges aren't just about hamstringing election offices and wasting their time and resources, it is also about intimidation. There’s a reason mass voter challenges disproportionately target Black, brown, and young voters- This widespread intimidation push harkens back to Jim Crow tactics leveraged against Black voters, seeking to coerce and silence Black voters by any tactic possible.

The coordinated right-wing effort to intimidate voters and pull resources away from the aspects of election administration that could make voting more accessible is the logical result of years of anti-democratic conspiracy theories like the Big Lie aimed at undermining American elections. Right-wing extremists have weaponized mass challenges to intimidate voters by forcing them into a process to re-prove their eligibility and accusing them of malfeasance.

An additional piece of this coordinated right-wing effort to intimidate voters and pull resources away from the aspects of election administration can be seen via the Georgia State Election Board and it’s new MAGA-majority. This illegitimate and unelected body continues to pass new rules that exceed its authority right before the election- the goal appears to be chaos and creating distrust in election outcomes and in particular delay or disrupt the certification of election results. The new, last-minute rules changes are being put forward and supported by Republican Party operatives and MAGA-connected election deniers- including election deniers who sit on county BOEs in the metro-Atlanta area like in Fulton, Cobb, and Gwinnett Counties and have voted against certifying election results in their counties, despite zero evidence of fraud.

Georgia law is clear that certifying election results is not a choice — it’s a mandatory duty. Election deniers are seeking more power to veto our votes by obstructing the certification of election results. But metro-Atlanta counties face the threat of election-deniers in key counties who want to sow chaos and doubt in our election.

Certification—or the withholding of certification—of election results has become a weapon in the arsenal of those who wish to deny the validity of our elections.  But, in addition to this proposed amendment undermining the validity of Georgia’s elections, the amendment is contrary to Georgia law. The amendment invades the legislative prerogative of the General Assembly, and history supports maintaining the current standard that certification is a ministerial responsibility. The SEB rules impacting election certification are not only contrary to Georgia law but they are also encroaching on the legislature’s authority to make laws. Nothing in the SEB’s authorizing legislation permits it to intrude on the power of the General Assembly.

Instead, the duties of the Board are enumerated in O.C.G.A. § 21-2-31 and include, in subsection (2), the duty “[t]o formulate, adopt, and promulgate such rules and regulations, consistent with law, as will be conducive to the fair, legal, and orderly conduct of primaries and elections; . . . “ So, when a proposed rule—such as GA Regs. 183-1-12-.02(c.2)—is inconsistent with the law, the board would be in breach of its responsibilities and exceed its authority were it to adopt such an unlawful rule. The SEB is acting outside of its authority and it is at the peril of not only Georgia voters but our hardworking election officials.

In attempting to make certification of elections at the county level discretionary, the Georgia State Election Board is being antagonistic to Georgia precedent that says that the role of election boards is to count, not adjudicate, votes; it usurps the role of General Assembly by giving itself legislative authority this state’s law-making body has not provided to the SEB; and it evidences an impudent ignorance of history that clearly demonstrates that election boards have no authority to make legal determinations about votes.

Despite the attempts to cast doubt on our election, attempts to overwhelm our already overworked and overburdened election workers and now hurricane-impacted election administration that we don’t yet fully understand the impacts, and attempts to intimidate and disenfranchise Georgia voters- Fair Fight Action and other pro-voter elected officials, community leaders, and advocates will continue in our efforts to protect and defend Georgia voters and our elections. We know that in the end, voters have the power and voters will decide.

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