Georgia election officials are proactively trying to quell any misinformation about the battleground state’s voter registration efforts before Election Day.
Monday marked the voter registration deadline for Georgia residents to vote in the November general election. Voting Systems Manager Gabriel Sterling said residents and others beyond Georgia “need to understand that does not mean have a locked voter list” and that the numbers of registered voters will shift over the next four weeks, but that does not mean the state is manipulating voter rolls or results.
“This is sort of a pre-bunking to those conspiracy theorists out there. Just because the voter list changes after today, that’s not fraud. That’s processing,” Sterling said during a press conference in Atlanta on Monday morning. “Secondarily, the list will continue to change, because, you know, what else happens all the time? Unfortunately, people pass away, and they will be removed from the list once we get that data.”
“There’s people out there that think there’s a locked voter list. There is no such thing. It will be slightly different every single day, because counties address these things differently, and just because the processing date is [dated as being] after today does mean that is an illegal registrant,” Sterling said. “It means that they got it in.”
A resident who theoretically registered on Sept. 12, Sterling said in an example, would receive a document that states he or she registered on Sept. 12, even though the clerk or county could update the database on a later date.
Although rumors have not spread online about voter registration levels, Sterling said it was in the state’s best interest to get ahead of claims but that it would be impossible to try to debunk all misinformation and disinformation.
As of Monday morning, Sterling said that 7,120,525 million active voters were registered and 1,080,606 voters were inactive. The latter group of residents have until the end of the day to update their status or lose the ability to vote next month.
The state will begin to send out absentee ballots starting on Monday. Roughly 219,930 ballots were slated to be mailed out. Sterling implored anyone curious about voter registration and absentee ballot counting to tune in to the state’s website and watch a livestream of elections operations.
Fifty-three Georgia counties have been declared as federal disaster areas in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which passed through the region 10 days ago, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during the press conference.
In Jenkins County, the windows were “blown out” of a building where election equipment was stored. Raffensperger said the equipment was not damaged.
Overall, Georgia Elections Director Blake Evans described “minimal” power outages to election offices across the state. The state has 2,400 Election Day polling locations. Thus far, only one location in Richmond County and one in Columbia County will have to be changed before Nov. 5 due to storm damage.
One U.S. Postal Service delivery route was affected by the storm, and Georgia officials said the state is in the process of determining the impact to 700 residents on that mail route.
“There have been some requests from some quarters that we need to extend deadlines. So far, we see no need to do that, which is a good thing,” Sterling said. “Secondarily, we have no legal authority to extend the registration deadline or the absentee request deadline, and we think we all have enough time ahead of ourselves to be able to have everybody make a good plan to protect their own vote and protect the registration.”
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“We’re going to be ready by Tuesday to start early voting, and absentee ballots are going out this week,” Raffensperger said. “We may have to move a few of those loading voting locations around, and local election officials also will use local and social media to announce any changes that are required in voting location.”
Early voting in Georgia will begin on Oct. 15.