Georgia NAACP files complaints alleging voting machines incorrectly registered votes

Deborah Barfield Berry | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Republican candidate for GA governor blocks voter registrations Democrat Stacy Abrams' campaign team says Brian Kemp should resign as Secretary of State amid allegations he’s blocking thousands of voter registrations. Kemp’s team said applicants can still vote if they verify their information at the polls.

WASHINGTON — The Georgia NAACP filed complaints Tuesday with state election officials alleging that some voting machines mistakenly showed votes cast for Democrat Stacey Abrams registering for her opponent Republican Brian Kemp.

The state conference of the NAACP filed the complaints electronically with the Georgia Secretary of State Office saying some voting machines in two counties, including Bartow and Dodge, didn’t initially register the correct votes.

"We’ve experienced this before," said Phyllis Blake, president of the Georgia NAACP. “They ended up taking these old dilapidated machines out of service. The ones giving the problems. They should have been replaced about 10 years ago."

The complaints were shared first with USA TODAY.

Blake said she plans to file two more complaints late Tuesday involving similar complaints in Henry and Cobb counties. The complaints are on behalf of eight voters. Blake said she plans to follow up with county election officials Wednesday.

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The complaints come amidst controversy over voting concerns in the competitive governor's race between Abrams and Kemp that has garnered national attention. Abrams could make history as the first African-American woman governor in the country if she wins in November.

But state and local election officials have come under fire from civil rights and voting rights over complaints about efforts to suppress the votes, particularly of black voters.

Kemp, who heads the state’s election system, has denied efforts to suppress the vote. His office said Wednesday morning that it is reviewing the complaints.

"If warranted, our office will open a formal investigation on behalf of the State Election Board,'' Candice Broce, a spokeswoman, said in an email. "We always encourage voters to reach out to our office if they experience any issues or witness any suspicious activity at the polls."

One of the complaints is on behalf of Pamela Grimes.

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Grimes said she went to a polling site in Bartow County Thursday and tried to select Abrams, but the machine marked the box for Kemp. Grimes said she tried several times to clear the selection before it allowed her to vote for Abrams.

“I was not going to leave until everything was the way I wanted it,’’ recalled Grimes, adding she also paid close attention to other selections. “If I had not been focused, my vote would have went for him.”

Grimes said she has since warned other voters. “I’ve been telling people when you vote to pay attention,’’ she said.

Dexter Benning, a Democratic board member for the Bartow Board of Elections and Voter Registration, said he raised the concern with an election supervisor who told him because of older machines there may be a problem with calibration.

Benning, who also voted on that same machine, said he had to touch the screen twice to make sure the correct candidate was selected. It worked, he said.

“We’re telling people just to check it,” Benning said. “We’re also telling them to check and make sure they haven’t been purged from the voting rolls.”

Benning said he doesn’t think there’s a systemic problem with voting machines, but he's concerned that many are old and need to be replaced.

Benning said with concerns about voter suppression and obstacles to voting, “the last thing we need to have is a problem with the machines."

The NAACP complaints are filed on behalf of African-American voters, but Bartow and Dodge are predominately white counties.

Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that 53,000 voter registrations were put on hold because information on the voter applications did not precisely match information on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration.

In August, a coalition of state and national groups rallied against a plan in Randolph County to close seven of nine polling sites in the predominately black county. The election officials rejected the plan. Abrams and Kemp had urged county election officials to drop the plan.

The national NAACP, which has focused some of it get-out-the-vote efforts in Georgia, has vowed to watch for voting concerns in the state.

“The essence of our democracy is at stake,'' Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, said in a statement.

Civil rights and voting rights groups have called for Kemp to resign, citing a conflict of interest as the head of the state’s election systems.

A coalition of local and national civil and voting rights groups, including Black Voters Matters and the New Georgia Project, and area churches plan to hold a “No Voter Suppression” rally in Atlanta on Sunday to protest what they call voter suppression tactics.

The rally will be followed by buses headed to eight surrounding counties to take voters to the polls for early voting. The “Fight back Freedom Rides” harken to the 1960s civil rights movement when activists rode buses through to the South to fight for equal rights.

“We’re in hand to hand combat,” said LaToscha Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, which has been leading a get-out-the-vote bus tour through the South.

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who was a Freedom Rider, has urged voters to show up at the polls.

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, told reporters Tuesday that voter suppression efforts seem to be clustered in states with competitive races, including Georgia and Indiana.

He said the ACLU and other voting rights groups have challenged changes in state election laws, including voter ID laws, during a “burst” of activity from 2011 to 2013.

But Ho said this election cycle voter suppression efforts have “come roaring back.”

Contributing: Maureen Groppe