Voting glitch was found in February, but no one told Fulton County

Fulton County officials got caught by surprise when a data glitch caused some voters to cast the wrong ballot in Tuesday's primary. Turns out, Georgia officials and state Democrats knew of the problem since February but no one told the county until Election Day.

According to emails shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, officials with the Democratic Party of Georgia emailed the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office on Feb. 17 after noticing voter maps for House District 59 and House District 60 — seats held by two Democrats on the south end of Atlanta that stretch into East Point — were coded incorrectly, putting some voters in the wrong district.

That means some voters may have received the wrong ballots and voted in the wrong race.

A state staffer at the time replied in an attempt to confirm which county the districts were in. No changes were made, and no one contacted Fulton County. Georgia Democrats again reached out to the state about the problem last week after noticing it had not been corrected. But state officials did not say anything to Fulton officials until Tuesday afternoon, after voting was well underway.

According to separate emails obtained by the AJC under an open records request, state Elections Director Chris Harvey on Tuesday told Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron he had just found out about the problem and acknowledged that a staffer “simply forgot to forward you the information when she got it last Wednesday.”

“I agree,” Harvey added, “that we should have gotten the information to you as soon as we got it.” It is unclear whether Harvey knew that the office had first been contacted about the problem in February.

The miscommunication has added to the frustration of local officials, who on Wednesday said they believe fewer than 40 voters may have cast the wrong ballots. Officials were also able to get the correct ballots to an additional 53 voters before the polls closed Tuesday evening, preventing any further problems. The issue was isolated to one polling location and precinct in East Point.

The race for House District 59 resulted in a runoff between the top two vote-getters, but the number of voters affected by Tuesday’s problem would not have made a difference in that outcome.

Barron said the county had run data audits of the county’s voting precincts after state lawmakers redrew the voting lines between the two districts last year. But because of a unique setup within East Point, the audit missed the problem in that one precinct.

“That is where our error is,” Barron said.

Under Georgia law, local elections officials are responsible for making sure voters are assigned to the right district before sending that information to the state. The county had been contacted by the state about getting the changes done starting in May 2015, after Gov. Nathan Deal signed the district line changes into law.

“The Secretary of State’s Office also conducted training sessions reminding affected counties to complete redistricting in time for the 2016 election cycle,” Secretary of State spokeswoman Candice Broce said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that certain Fulton voters did not receive the correct ballot for the May 24 contests, but we will continue to coordinate with Fulton officials to resolve this issue and prevent future occurrences.”

Michael Smith, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, said the party contacted the Secretary of State's Office — rather than Fulton officials — because the agency oversees statewide voter data files. The party recently clashed with Secretary of State Brian Kemp over a similar problem in Dougherty County. James Williams, one of the party's candidates for state House, was disqualified by Kemp earlier this month after an an Office of State Administrative Hearings judge found he lived outside the district seat he was campaigning to represent. A faulty district map had included Williams' residence.

“It is increasingly apparent that the SOS (Secretary of State) cannot handle the technology necessary to run a fair election,” Smith said, adding that the party was “keeping all options open,” including whether to ask federal officials for help monitoring Georgia elections.