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Fulton County flagged 7,000 voters until this happened
Fulton County confirmed that 7,000 voters issued residency challenges over commercial address records will be allowed to cast regular ballots on Election Day following an intervention by civil liberties advocates.
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - A resolution between civil rights advocates and local election officials will allow roughly 7,000 Fulton County voters who faced residency challenges to cast regular ballots.
What we know:
Around 7,000 challenge letters were mailed instructing voters to attend a hearing to verify where they live.
ORIGINAL STORY: Fulton election office reviews residency of nearly 7K voters
The American Civil Liberties Union and partner election protection groups intervened after receiving dozens of complaints from county residents.
County officials flagged the voters because internal registration databases listed their addresses as commercial or nonresidential properties.
Civil rights attorneys discovered the issue through an open records request and met with Fulton County representatives to prevent disenfranchisement.
The backstory:
The residency issues surfaced when two residents of a newly built Sandy Springs apartment complex were told their home was listed on county records as a gas station.
Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections Chair Sherri Allen said the parcel previously contained a gas station and a Big Lots store before apartments opened at the end of last year.
Allen said the county is publishing notices on its registration and elections webpage to prevent voter intimidation.
What they're saying:
ACLU attorney Akiva Freidlin emphasized that state law does not limit voter registration to traditional detached housing.
"They know that living at something called a residential address is not a requirement to vote in Georgia," Freidlin said. "You can live in an apartment on top of a store, or you can be an unhoused person who pitches a tent at that place. If you are a resident of the county, you are allowed to vote here legally."
What you can do:
The ACLU confirmed that affected residents are entitled to cast standard ballots rather than provisional ones.
Any voter experiencing registration or ballot access problems at the polls can call the nonpartisan voter protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE.
What we don't know:
Officials have not yet confirmed how many total challenge letters were sent across every municipality in the county. It remains unverified how many voters may still appear at administrative hearings instead of their regular voting sites.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered from the American Civil Liberties Union, who reviewed public records and met with county attorneys, as well as Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections Chair Sherri Allen and investigative reporting by Aungelique Proctor.