ATLANTA — The Georgia State Election Board opened an investigation Monday into seven county election boards for their handling of thousands of challenges to voter registrations.

The board vote came after activists from across the state complained to the board that county-level election officials had dismissed almost all of their challenges since Georgia’s latest voter challenge law — Senate Bill 189 — that went into effect July 1.

In a 3-0 vote, the State Election Board approved an internal investigation by Executive Director Mike Coan into Fulton, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cobb, Jackson, Athens-Clarke, and Bibb elections management of voter challenges.

Marci McCarthy, chair of the DeKalb County Republican Party, said a lawsuit filed by conservative activist Williams Henderson and the DeKalb County Republican Party last week seeks to force DeKalb Elections to consider three batches of challenges submitted by Henderson.

The lawsuit, filed in the DeKalb Superior Court, says the DeKalb’s elections board is legally obligated to consider Henderson’s three batches of challenges submitted last month.

“Our mission is to ensure that every eligible citizen has the opportunity to vote, and equally important, that no ineligible person is allowed to vote,” McCarthy told the State Election Board.

The DeKalb Elections Board adopted a resolution at its September meeting saying it would not consider any challenges within 90 days of an election. The resolution referenced a federal statute mandating voter rolls be cleaned no later than 90 days before a federal election.

Another state statute requires county boards to pause considering new challenges within 45 days of an election.

In another lawsuit filed by two conservative vote challengers — Jason Frazier and Earl Ferguson — seeks to force the Fulton Elections Board to act on recent voter eligibility challenges.

The lawsuit submitted to the U.S. District Court in Atlanta said Fulton violated state and federal law by not acting on recent voter challenges in a timely fashion and failing to keep clean voter rolls. The duo’s attorney withdrew the lawsuit last week.

State laws passed in the wake of the 2020 presidential election allow any registered voter to challenge an unlimited number of voters in the same county. Conservative activists have utilized these laws to lodge over 350,000 voter challenges since 2020 and another 45,000 across four metro counties since July. County election boards dismiss a majority of challenges.

Conservative vote challengers seek to purge voter rolls of outdated registrations, saying they could be used as a source of voter fraud.

But left-leaning advocates fear these state statutes could disenfranchise eligible voters and say instead registration cancellations use the state’s routine list maintenance process for removal.

Multiple investigations, recounts and court proceedings have disproved allegations of widespread voter fraud fueled by former President Donald Trump.

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