CUMMING, Ga., May 16 (Reuters) - When a Forsyth County, Georgia, man last week challenged the eligibility of 13,000 voters, a power that a new state law gives individual citizens, it set Democrats and voting-rights activists scrambling, calling in a high-powered law firm to protest.
County election officials rejected his request, but party organizers expect to be doing more of this kind of quick mobilization as the Nov. 8 midterm elections approach, fearing Republicans will tap provisions in the state's 2021 election law to try to suppress the vote.
"Because of Georgia's new trash election laws, one man was allowed to challenge the right to vote for 13,000 voters," Nsé Ufot, chief executive of the New Georgia Project, a voting-rights group based in Atlanta, said in an interview. "That is what is at stake in these November elections: The material rights that we enjoy as Americans."
Forsyth County officials voted unanimously at a Thursday meeting in Cumming, a city about 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Atlanta, to dismiss resident Frank Schneider's challenge ahead of the May 24 primary.
Equal to 8% of the county's registered voters, it was one of the largest challenges yet under the 2021 state Senate Bill 202, which critics say was designed to make it more difficult for people of color to vote and supporters say is intended to prevent fraud.
Georgia's law was one of nearly three dozen in 2021 that curbed ballot access across 19 states, most of them controlled by Republicans....
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