Cobb Board of Elections Denies Challenges To Voter Rolls

MARIETTA, GA — The Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration unanimously voted to deny a hearing on three separate challenges aimed at disqualifying thousands of Cobb County voters ahead of the Jan. 5 Senate runoff election.

The board called a special meeting Friday to hear the three challenges — one from Cobb County GOP Chairman Jason Shepherd, and two from Pamela Reardon, a Cobb County real estate agent — and determine if there was probable cause for a full hearing.

Shepherd's challenge was against 16,024 voters, while Reardon's two challenges were against 32,378 voters collectively. It is possible that there is some overlap between the individual voters on each of the lists, officials said during the meeting.

Both of the challenges questioned the eligibility of voters who were listed on National Change of Address records and the Cobb County voter registration database, claiming that those voters no longer live in Georgia and cannot vote in Cobb County in the runoff election. But the county's legal counsel said the evidence provided did not indicate probable cause for a full hearing.

"I don't believe this is probable cause to challenge these voters," Gregg Litchfield, one of the county's attorneys, said during the meeting. "The mere production of a voter registration database, compared with a national change of address registry, is not sufficient."

Litchfield said Shepherd's list of voters did not include the distinction between a permanent or temporary change of address, which is a distinction the NCOA includes in its change-of-address form.

He also noted that the National Voter Registration Act indicates voter list maintenance must be done no later than 90 days prior to an Election Day, which meant list maintenance would have had to take place prior to Oct. 5.

"We're 19 days before the election. This list is certainly not a fact," Litchfield said.

Daniel White, another attorney for the county, said even if the board had found probable cause, the voters on Shepherd's and Reardon's lists would still be able to vote on Jan. 5 or by absentee ballot — their vote would just be marked as "challenged" in the system, and they would have to vote by provisional ballot.

"I can tell you if they move forward to the hearing, with what they've presented so far, I don't think you'd have enough to find any single one of these people ineligible," White said. "This is very close to the type of thing the National Voter Registration Act prohibits, which is massive list maintenance during an election."