ATLANTA, GA – The ACLU of Georgia has urged the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections to protect thousands of eligible voters whose registrations have been incorrectly questioned ahead of the November election.
The ACLU reviewed 7,642 Fulton County voters whose registrations have been classified as “challenged,” and uncovered factual errors and legal issues. Typically, being “challenged” means a voter must affirmatively prove their eligibility and is at risk of being removed from the voter rolls.
Of those voters, over 7,000 had their registrations classified as “challenged” because the County flagged their home address as being “nonresidential,” apparently based on systems that classify land for tax and zoning status. However, under federal and Georgia law, a person’s right to register and vote does not depend on whether they live in a building or land designated as “residential.” All voters are eligible to vote in the county they reside, no matter what type of structure they live in and even if they do not have stable housing at all. The ACLU of Georgia randomly chose 1,100 addresses to examine and found that hundreds of them were houses, apartments, and mixed-use buildings.
In a letter to the Board of Elections, the ACLU of Georgia called on Fulton County to remove any incorrectly flagged voters. In response, the county has stated that the incorrect classifications will not affect anyone’s eligibility to vote, and that all eligible voters who live in the county, regardless of what type of structure they live in, will be able to vote at their polling location.
If any voters run into issues regarding this or otherwise, we urge them to call the Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE.
“It is critical that eligible voters across Georgia be freely able to cast their ballots,” said Akiva Freidlin, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Georgia. “To register in a county, a person simply needs to reside there. How their residence is zoned or taxed is irrelevant. Election officials must ensure that no eligible Georgian is prevented from voting because of confusion over the law.”
These misclassified registrations point to a wider problem with Georgia’s election laws: Lawmakers have amended the code with vague terms such as “nonresidential address” that create conflicts with federal law and even with other Georgia statutes. This leads to confusion for election officials and puts eligible voters at risk of disenfranchisement.
The ACLU of Georgia’s review also raised concerns about the timing of challenges and list maintenance. The National Voter Registration Act restricts systematic programs that remove voters from registration lists during the 90 days before a federal primary or election. This protects voters from threatened removals when the risk of disfranchising eligible voters is the greatest.
The review identified 290 voters with challenge dates on or after August 5, 2026, within the NVRA’s protected period before the November election. Any systematic practice that flags voters as “challenged” just days or weeks before an election raises the likelihood of interfering with voting rights.
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