Early voters in Georgia show up in record numbers amid voting challenges

With just hours left leading up to election day, Georgia voters have shown up in droves to cast their ballots for the 2022 U.S. midterms.

As of Nov. 5, 2.5 million votes had been submitted in the state, and the turnout at advance polls reached an all-time record, but many say they have been challenged at the polls amid accusations of voter suppression.

Black voters in particular, who make up 35 per cent of eligible voters in the state, have voiced their concerns for being denied their right to vote, including PhD student Jennifer Jones, who claims her ballot was challenged because she is a Black woman who predominantly votes Democrat.

"This isn't the first go-around that Black people have with being challenged or voter suppression, so I'm not really surprised but I wasn't really expecting this to happen," she told CTV National News in an interview.

Jones says the challenge to her vote was likely allowed to be made because of the state’s Election Integrity Act that was passed last year. In 2021, Georgia's Republican governor Brian Kemp passed the bill, also known as S.B.202, which includes various voting limitations such as not allowing food or water to be distributed in voting lines and allowing any citizen to anonymously challenge a voter's eligibility.

A voters advocacy group was able to clear the challenge to Jones' vote and she was able to submit her ballot within two days. However, with early voting now closed, Jones says she worries about others who will vote on election day, when the verification process might take longer and many may not be able to cast their ballots in time before polling is officially closed.

While most challenges to voters have been dismissed, there have been reports of other counties in the state facing similar hurdles. Election officials in the state's third most populous county, Cobb County, found more than 1,000 absentee ballots were not sent out and an activists group is now filing a lawsuit seeking for the ballots to be sent out immediately and extend the submission deadline from Nov. 8, election day, to Nov. 14, the same deadline for absentee voters overseas and in the military.

The lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia (ACLU), Southern Poverty Law Center and Dechert LLP claims election officials have been negatively affected by S.B.202 and in turn increased the margin for error in sending and collecting ballots to voters.

“The anti-voter law put tremendous pressure on elections officials to accomplish a number of responsibilities under a very tight deadline, and in Cobb County, that pressure has resulted in a huge error and hundreds of voters at risk of being disenfranchised," said Rahul Garabadu, senior voting rights attorney at the ACLU of Georgia, in a statement.

"We are suing to make sure all Cobb County voters are able to have their voices heard, and we look forward to the day when the state partners with counties to make voting easier, not harder, for all Georgians.”

Jamal Bryant, a pastor from Georgia, told CTV National News he'll continue to encourage members of his congregation to cast their votes, as he says the challenges voters have been facing show the importance of their ballot.

"We have been conditioned to deal with crisis aggressively, and it is higher because we know if you're trying to take it, it's got to be of some value," he said.