Monday, January 20, 2025

Appeal Of Suit Against County Over Voter Registration Challenges Moves To Georgia Supreme Court

***Analysis Shows Three On Challenged List Voted In Person***

The Georgia Supreme Court has received and recorded an appeal of the decision by Oconee Superior Court Judge Lisa Lott in October to dismiss an attempt to force the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration to review challenges filed in July of last year to the registration of 228 Oconee County voters.

Oconee County resident Suzannah Heimel filed a notice of appeal with the Georgia Court of Appeals on Nov. 26 of Judge Lott’s Oct. 24 ruling dismissing Heimel’s case, arguing that Lott had “misinterpreted the law” and “did not give due process of the law to the Petitioner.”

The Court of Appeals ordered the case transferred to the state Supreme Court on Jan. 6 on the grounds that the Supreme Court of Georgia has “exclusive appellate jurisdiction over all cases of election contest.”

The Supreme Court received and docketed the case on Jan. 15.

An analysis of the 228 registration challenges, filed not by Heimel but by Victoria Cruz, shows that three of those challenged voters cast a ballot in the Nov. 5 election, two of them via in-person early voting and one via election day in-person voting.

In-person voters must provide poll workers with one of six specified forms of identification to vote, and poll workers verify the voter by comparing photos on the identification with the person asking to vote.

Before the Nov. 26 appeal, Oconee County had spent $28,797 in outside legal fees to defend against the lawsuit filed by Heimel, according to a vendor report by the county.

County Attorney Daniel Haygood estimated he had billed the county another $6,400 for his time in related to the challenges filed by Heimel, Cruz, and Stephen Aleshire.

Challenges Filed

Cruz filed two separate challenges to the registration of voters in July, one consisting of 197 names and the other of 31. Heimel dates that filing as July 19 in her legal suit.

Heimel 4/4/2024

The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration, at its Aug. 6 meeting, dismissed the challenges of all but two of the names on the list of 31 and of all of the challenges on the list of 197, citing a lack of probable cause.

After holding a hearing on Aug. 15 on the two challenged voters from the list of 31 submitted by Cruz, the Board voted to remove both names from the list.

Heimel asked the Oconee County Superior Court to direct the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration to hold a hearing on all 228 of the voters whose registration had been challenged.

Judge Lott on Oct. 24 ruled that state law barred the county from taking any action on the challenges before it.

Cruz and her husband, Aleshire, had filed an additional 75 challenges of voter registration and 75 challenges of the rights of registered voters to cast ballots.

Sharon Gregg, Director of Oconee County Office of Elections and Registration, told the Board at its December meeting that none of the 75 voters whose rights to cast a ballot had been challenged had voted or made an attempt to do so.

Heimel, Cruz, and Aleshire all ran unsuccessfully in local political races last year as part of what was called an alternative “slate” of candidates.

Analysis Of List Of 228

To extend the analysis Gregg reported on those 75 voters, I asked for a copy of the two lists submitted by Cruz consisting of the 228 voters who are at the heart of the lawsuit filed by Heimel.

I also asked for a list of the names and voter identification numbers of all Oconee County voters who cast a ballot in the Nov. 5 election.

The two lists Cruz submitted contained the voter identification numbers.

I standardized and combined those two lists and then merged them with a standardized list of the voters from the Nov. 5 election.

One name appeared on both of the lists submitted by Cruz, so the final total was 227 voters.

On the list of 31 submitted by Cruz, 15 were listed as Active by the county, including the two the Board removed from the list at its meeting on Aug. 6, with the remaining 16 labeled as Inactive by the county.

On the list of 197, all were labeled Inactive.

Only three of the 227 voters on the two lists cast a ballot on Nov. 5. Neither of the two voters who had been removed from the list by the Board cast a ballot.

Two of those who cast a ballot voted at the Administrative Building during early voting, and one voted at the Civic Center on Election Day.

All had been labeled Inactive on the lists.

Screening Procedures

In an email sent me on Dec. 18, Gregg said that “When a voter votes in person during Advance Voting or on Election Day, they must provide the Poll Worker with one of the six forms of identification.

Gregg 12/3/2024

“The Georgia Driver’s License is the most commonly provided form of identification,” she said. “The Poll Worker scans the back of the license on the poll pad to locate the voter in the state-wide voter registration system.”

“The worker also verifies the voter by comparing the photo on the license with the person standing in front of them,” she said. “If the voter is found in the system, the Poll Worker proceeds with the voting process.”

Gregg said that “absentee ballot applications are verified by comparing the identifying information on the application to what we have in our Voter Registration System.”

“The absentee ballot application requires the voter’s Georgia Driver’s License Number or State Identification Card Number, (and) the voters date of birth,” she wrote. “(I)f the voter does not have a Georgia Driver’s License or Identification Card, the voter can provide a copy of acceptable Identification.”

“The voter’s signature is also required on the application,” she wrote.

“If there is a mismatch in the identifying information the voter is mailed a letter and a cure affidavit,” according to Gregg. “We also contact the voter with the contact information on file and/or on application to request the voter to provide information to cure the application.”

The voter must return the completed affidavit along with a copy of the accepted forms of identification to cure the application, she said.

Consequences Of Challenges

Cruz told the Board of Elections and Registration at its Oct. 1 meeting that her goal in making her challenges was to help the county clean up its voter lists by removing people who had moved out of the county.

The challenge to the 228 voters was of their registration.

Cruz And Aleshire 10/1/2024

Cruz and Aleshire subsequently submitted nine different lists with the 75 names of the persons whose right to vote in the Nov. 5 election they challenged.

On Oct. 1, the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration spent 90 minutes reviewing on a case-by-case basis those challenges before voting to sustain the challenge in 66 of those cases.

The Board determined that it found “probable cause” to challenge the voters and scheduled a hearing for Oct. 24 to give those challenged an opportunity to come forward to dispute the Board’s decision.

That meeting was cancelled on the order of Judge Lott. Gregg told the Board in December that none of those 75 voters had cast a ballot.

The Vendor Activity Report for the county shows that the county paid Gilbert Harrell Sumerford Martin PC $1,630 and $27,167 for two invoices in the period of Sept. 1 to Nov. 18, 2024.

C. Ryan Germany from that Atlanta law firm represented the county in defending against the lawsuit filed by Heimel against Gregg and Jay Hanley, Chair of the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration.

County Attorney Haygood told me in an email Nov. 20 that his fees for elections from July 1 to Oct. 31, 2024, were $14,200, and he estimated that roughly 45 percent of that “related to the challenges filed by Heimel, Cruz and Aleshire, so around $6,400.”

Discussion of challenges to voter registration is on the agenda again for the meeting scheduled for 5 p.m. on Tuesday at the county Administrative Building.

The Board also will discuss a proposal to reduce the number of precincts from eight to four.

2 comments:

Victoria Cruz said...

There is so much inaccuracy in this account, but you are not entirely to blame. The legal costs charged by Haygood are directly related to the lack of knowledge and preparedness of the board to address their responsibilities for county voter list maintenance.

The list of 197 voter registrations submitted by me was not an official challenge, but was an inquiry as to why these registrations remained on the voter rolls without voting for longer than is allowed by law (GA Code 21-2-234 ).

All official 21-2-229 and 21-2-230 challenges were filed on time. The Board chose to deny or delay hearings on the challenges for their convenience or lack of understanding of the laws.

I'm happy to clear up other misinformation if you are interested.

Victoria Cruz
thevcruz@google.com

Lee Becker said...

Victoria, I am pleased to add your explanation here.
Lee