In September 2020, just before that year’s presidential election, the ACLU of Georgia released a report conducted by investigative reporter Greg Palast titled, Georgia Voter Roll Purge Errors. The report concluded the Republican party-controlled state had removed 198,000 voter registrations of Georgia citizens in 2019 on the grounds that they had moved from the address listed on their voter registration application.
Investigators found that none of these citizens had moved, but the purge of these voters disproportionately affected voters in communities of color as well as young and lower-income voters. Once this scheme was exposed, a major effort was launched to ensure these voters were reinstated on the voter rolls. Joe Biden went on to win Georgia’s November election and Democrats Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff both won their January Senate runoff elections.
After the 2020 election, Georgia Republicans passed a new voter suppression law, S.B. 202, that gives state-level officials the authority to replace county election boards, criminalizes anyone who offers food and water to voters waiting in line and severely restricts the use of absentee ballots and ballot drop boxes.
Astonishingly, the law also empowers individual voters to challenge literally, tens of thousands of other Georgian’s right to vote. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with best-selling author and investigative journalist Greg Palast, who’s been reporting on voter suppression for over 20 years. Here, Palast talks about his new documentary film, “Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman,” produced by Martin Sheen, for release this fall.
GREG PALAST: The reason it’s called “Vigilante” is that in the new law, there’s an old trick juiced up. What no one seems to have noticed is that under Georgia law, you can now challenge an unlimited number of voters. Any voter can challenge an unlimited number of other voters. And they have and it’s not been covered.
Over a quarter million voters are facing a challenge where individuals — that’s why they’re called vigilantes, they’re not officials — they may be officially related to the Republican party, but they’re not state officials. It’s not like a state official removing you, which was a problem before. This is just any individual can say, “Scott Harris can’t vote. No, Scott doesn’t really live in Connecticut. I’m challenging his vote.”
We had one woman that you’ll meet in the film who challenged 32,000 people in the Atlanta suburb. 32,000. There’s so many people that she challenged, saying that they didn’t have the right to vote, that she couldn’t even print it out. She handed in a thumb drive and we called 800 of the people on her list. They were all shocked: “What do you mean I don’t live here. I’m right here. Hello?”
She didn’t check. She didn’t call. She didn’t care. You know, overwhelmingly black and young voters who could lose their vote.
In addition, we had a another guy who actually dresses like a vigilante. His name is Alton Russell, but he likes to dress up like Doc Holliday. Remember the old vigilante from the OK Corral? He’s actually a Georgian. And this guy wanders around in a cowboy hat and loaded six-shooter. I kid you not. You’d think all this was just an old nut case.
Well, you may think he’s a nut case, but he’s also chairman of the county Republican Party and a member of the Republican State Committee. He’s an important guy in Georgia Republican politics. He challenged 4,000 people. And one of the people he challenged, by the way, is an African-American career military man who has been assigned by the commander-in-chief to California.
So that’s why he asked for an absentee ballot from his home near Fort Benning, Georgia, where he lives. So that’s the latest. And believe me, if it’s in Georgia, as we’ve found in my prior investigations nationwide, if they try in Georgia, it spreads quickly elsewhere. In fact, these lists were created by a group called True the Vote, out of Texas.
And so they are a group that basically has been attacking voter rolls and black voters for 10 years.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, as you’ve said over the years that Georgia is the Republican Party’s election subversion and dirty tricks laboratory. So here’s another example.
Now, Greg, your goal, of course, is to expose this scheme to deprive people of their votes. What’s the process in terms of adjudicating the correctness or failure to prove that somebody doesn’t deserve to vote once put on one of these lists? Do people have a right to respond? And how is this question settled?
GREG PALAST: Oh, it’s the craziest thing. It just says all you have to do is fill out a piece of paper that says, I believe that the following people are not legal voters here in Georgia. And then you just give a list of the names and addresses and voter numbers. They just list them. That’s it. Now, in my opinion and in the opinion of, for example, Gerald Griggs, who’s the president of the NAACP, Georgia and a famous trial lawyer, he said looks like a violation of Klu Klux Klan Act. You can’t just…
I asked this woman who challenged 32,000 people, “Did you call these people?”
“I didn’t call all 32,000 people. Are you crazy?”
“Now, did you send out letters to these people saying, ‘I’m challenging — you know, do you live where you live?'”
“No.”
“Did you go to their addresses?”
“No.”
Didn’t do anything. She’s got this list from this Texas group, this hit list from this Texas group.
“So what’s the big deal? They can always get their names back on.”
No, they can’t.
Like the Major was told, “If you want to vote, you have to come into our office and prove that you still live where you live.”
And that’s the procedure: You must go into the county office and have a hearing on whether you live where you live.
And the major, he said, “I’m 2,300 miles away. They want me to fly from California to get my vote counted.”
And by the way, he did. He did just that. He wasn’t going to let it go. But that’s why, so you literally have to go in and prove you are. You are. It’s a crazy system. Now, understand, this woman challenged 32,000 people in Cobb County alone.
So you have to have 32,000 people jammed into those offices. By the way, during COVID. They say, “Oh, you will get a notice from the county.”
If you’re lucky, they’re supposed to send you a postcard. Now, come on, it’s junk mail. So it’s a mad system and we’re trying to get it blocked.
There was an attempt to do this before the the senatorial runoff in January of 2021. But it was blocked by the courts simply on the grounds that it was within 90 days of a federal election. You can’t remove someone within 90 days of a federal election. So that failed.
But everyone’s guard was down because they didn’t realize that the new law would empower the crazies.
Well, I say crazies … That’s not so crazy if they can win the election this way, is it?
For more information, visit Greg Palast’s website at gregpalast.com.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Greg Palast (28:13) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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