In an article smearing citizen challenges to suspicious voter roll entries, USA Today’s Maya Homan told a sympathetic story about Candace Smith, an attorney who discovered a “challenge to her voter registration status” when she went to vote in the May 2024 presidential primary in Fulton County where she has reportedly “been an active voter” for “decades.” But as far as certain Fulton County officials can tell, the challenge never actually happened.
Homan’s article, titled “New Georgia law makes voter intimidation easier, critics say; affects Black voters most,” opened by detailing Smith’s shock and frustration, with Smith also reportedly asserting that “the challenge did not include any reason or evidence.”
Homan says Smith is a “longtime proponent of voting rights efforts in Georgia” and that she was “well positioned to advocate for her rights.” Smith is said to have “quickly contacted the Fulton County Elections Office, raising the issue to a supervisor to make doubly sure that her ballot had counted,” according to Homan.
“But for the average person,” Smith reportedly told Homan, “encountering a voter challenge could pose an insurmountable barrier.”
Homan continued, “Had [Smith] less time or knowledge about the complex web of election infrastructure, she said, ‘that might be an issue that prevented me from voting, and it also might be something that would deter me from bothering in the fall.’”
A search of the Georgia Bar Association website produced two possible matches, a “Candace Noelle Smith” and a “Lisa Candace Smith.” When I checked a copy
