Thread by @DemocracyDocket

🚨About 80,000 Georgians have had their voter eligibility challenged so far this year — but the Peach State isn't the only place where mass voter challenges have surged. Here's what you should know.

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A provision of Georgia voter suppression law #SB202 allows individuals to challenge an unlimited number of voters. Tens of thousands of challenges have been filed in counties like Cobb, Gwinnett and Forsyth. democracydocket.com/opinion/the-wo…

Mass voter challenges aren't new, but they have grown in recent years. Before the 2021 U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia, a right-wing organization challenged the eligibility of over 364,000 voters — the largest mass voter challenge in Georgia history. democracydocket.com/analysis/voter…

Additionally, a conservative group recently announced plans to challenge tens of thousands of voters in 9 states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. democracydocket.com/news-alerts/co…

The group shared that it identified over 55,000 voters in Arizona, 125,000 in Georgia and 142,000 in Pennsylvania who it deems ineligible and plans to challenge. The group also encourages local "activists" to challenge voters.

Many of the groups behind these voter challenges use the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address (NCOA) database — where individuals file requests to forward their mail — as evidence that a person has moved and is ineligible to vote in a given jurisdiction.

Asking for mail to be forwarded doesn't disprove a voter's eligibility. Using the NCOA alone, it’s impossible to know whether someone has moved out-of-state permanently or has asked their mail to be forwarded for a myriad of other reasons.

The NCOA can capture students at an out-of-state university, members of the military, civilians deployed abroad or those who have simply moved elsewhere, but not necessarily out of the county or state.

Even when counties reject frivolous challenges, the effort threatens to overwhelm elections offices during an already busy time. If not stopped, these disruptive, and often discriminatory, challenges will likely endanger the rights of eligible voters across the country.