Voting twice in the same election — once in Georgia and again in another state — is a felony.
But a huge backlog of cases at the State Election Board has, at times, prevented the timely prosecution of this kind of election fraud, allowing alleged wrongdoers to escape justice. Under Georgia law, charges must be brought within four years of the crime.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has begun circumventing the State Election Board by bringing accusations of double-voting directly to local district attorneys.
Several of those cases have already resulted in arrests, indictments and punishments.
In all, Raffensperger’s office has sought prosecutions of 84 voters who voted twice in the same election in 2020 or 2022, according to voting records from a 25-state organization called the Electronic Registration Information Center.
“Unlawful behavior has consequences, and people should be held accountable,” said Charlene McGowan, general counsel for the secretary of state’s office. “We made the decision to just go ahead and send them to law enforcement and local district attorneys as soon as we had an investigation done, rather than waiting on the State Election Board during this time the backlog has continued to build.”
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
A total of 315 cases of fraud or errors have been fully investigated but haven’t yet been presented to the State Election Board, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last month.
The case backlog grew last year when the State Election Board dedicated much of its time to passing new rules — such as for ballot counts by hand and “inquiries” of results — that the Georgia Supreme Court later rejected.
Meanwhile, investigations of election misbehavior, including allegations of double-voting, languished.
At least seven cases Raffensperger’s office brought to local prosecutors have resulted in criminal charges.
Tobi Edler-Slaughter, 49, was arrested last month in Columbia County on charges that she mailed an absentee ballot to Georgia in October 2020 and also cast a ballot in-person in Fort Washington, Maryland, days later. Edler-Slaughter, who served seven years in the U.S. Army and recently worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has pleaded not guilty.
“Our obligation is to uphold the law. It’s important to protect the integrity of our election process,” said Columbia Judicial Circuit District Acting District Attorney Natalie Paine. “When you have evidence of people voting in two places, that shouldn’t be handled by the State Election Board. It should be sent to us for prosecution.”
Edler-Slaughter’s attorney, Jadé Redmond, said she believes the prosecution is a politically motivated effort to retroactively find fraud in the 2020 election. She said she hasn’t seen any evidence against her client besides the indictment.
“This is kind of like the ammunition to say, ‘Ah-ha, we found these cases, we found the voter fraud,’” Redmond said. “It’s a political angle. Midterms are around the corner.”
Normally, allegations of election fraud are first considered by the State Election Board, which then votes whether to refer investigations to prosecutors, levy a fine, issue a public reprimand, send a warning letter, or dismiss the case.
As the board’s backlog delayed cases, some double-voting allegations from the 2020 and 2022 elections still haven’t been heard.
State Election Board Chairman John Fervier said the secretary of state’s office shouldn’t try to get around the board by going straight to prosecutors.
“I’m a big believer in hearing the facts and the intent and what occurred,” Fervier said. “There are some clear-cut cases, but they should at least ask our opinion on it before they send it on. It should come to us.”
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
In cases involving elderly voters with memory issues who said they didn’t remember voting twice, the board has sent warning letters rather than seek criminal prosecutions.
Other times, the clock has run out on the possibility of charges.
Investigators asked the Gwinnett County district attorney’s office to take a case of a Georgia voter they said also voted in Nevada in 2018 and 2020, but they were told it was too late to bring charges.
The State Election Board voted last October to refer the case to the attorney general’s office, which has the authority to seek a civil penalty. An attorney for the voter said he didn’t do anything wrong and his identity may have been stolen.
State Election Board Executive Director James Mills said double-voting allegations should have been prioritized.
“I don’t understand why these cases weren’t already brought to the board. Why have they sat for three years?” Mills said.
Fervier said election investigators pick a list of cases that they’re prepared to present at each State Election Board meeting, and those cases are put on the agenda. Other cases have to wait until future board meetings.
In prosecutions so far, sanctions have been relatively light.
In a Fannin County case, a voter agreed to 40 hours of community service and a $145 fine for voting both in Georgia and in Texas in 2020 and 2022. The voter, William Burns, told the AJC last year an election worker told him he was allowed to vote in both states after he bought a cabin in Georgia.
In Catoosa County, prosecutors agreed to banish a woman who lives in — and voted in — West Virginia. But the case was reopened last month after the voter allegedly failed to comply with her banishment, according to court records.
Other county prosecutors have declined to bring charges.
DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston’s office investigated Raffensperger’s double-voting allegations but because the cases involve multiple jurisdictions, the cases were recommended prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office or the Georgia attorney general’s office, said a spokeswoman.
Both federal prosecutors and the attorney general’s office have declined to prosecute, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Many accusations of double-voting were never proved.
In a broad inquiry that reached the State Election Board last year, investigators were only able to verify five out of 395 allegations of double-voting after matching names and Social Security numbers. Those cases are now pending with the attorney general’s office.
“Fraud is vanishingly rare, but when it happens, it absolutely needs to be pursued,” said State Election Board member Sara Tindall Ghazal. “The whole point of prosecuting these cases is to deter that activity from other people. When we can’t do that, it undermines confidence in the system.”
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