O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 21-2-590 (2019)

Poll officer permitting unregistered or unqualified persons to vote; refusing to permit registered and qualified persons to vote; unlawful rendering of assistance

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)

Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.

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Any poll officer who: (1) Permits any unregistered person to vote at any primary or election, knowing such person is unregistered; (2) Permits any person registered as an elector to vote, knowing that such person is not qualified to vote, whether or not such person has been challenged; (3) Refuses to permit any duly registered and qualified person to vote at any primary or election, with the knowledge that such person is entitled to vote; or (4) Renders assistance to an elector in voting in violation of Code Section 21-2-409, or knowingly permits another person to render such assistance in violation of Code Section 21-2-409 shall be guilty of a felony.

History

Code 1933, § 34-1920, enacted by Ga. L.

1964, Ex. Sess., p. 26, § 1; Ga. L. 1998, p. 295, § 1; Ga. L. 2007, p. 536, § 12/SB 40.

Annotations

JUDICIAL DECISIONS Editor’s notes. - In light of the similarity of the statutory provisions, decisions under former Code 1873, § 1283 and former Code 1910, § 77 are included in the annotations for this Code section. Purpose. - This section was not intended to make legal the rejection by the election managers of persons legally entitled to vote. Its purpose was to protect the election managers from liability when they did not knowingly reject the votes of persons who proposed to vote, and to safeguard pro tanto the right of persons entitled to register and vote from being prohibited so to do by the managers when these officers knew that the prohibition

was illegal. Briscoe v. Between Consol. Sch. Dist., 171 Ga. 820, 156 S.E. 654, 1931 Ga. LEXIS 472 (1931) (decided under former Code 1910, § 77). Liability for innocent denial of voting right. - A superintendent of elections, having taken the prescribed statutory oath, is not criminally liable in the absence of fraud or malice when under a mistaken interpretation of the Constitution the superintendent denies an elector the right to vote. Seeley v. Koox, 21 F. Cas. 1014, 1874 U.S. App. LEXIS 1890 (C.C.S.D. Ga. Apr. 1, 1874) (decided under former Code 1873, § 1283).

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL Fingerprinting required. - An offense under O.C.G.A. § 21-2-590 would be

designated as one which requires fingerprinting. 1998 Op. Att’y Gen. No. 98-20.

ELECTIONS & PRIMARIES

RESEARCH REFERENCES Am. Jur. 2d. 26 Am. Jur. 2d, Elections, § 449.

C.J.S. 29 C.J.S., Elections, § 573.