A Republican Congressman from Georgia voted three times while registered to vote at a house he sold before any of these elections took place, according to information highlighted by news outlets including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Doing so could violate state law in Georgia, which requires those casting ballots register with addresses in counties where they actually live. Drew Ferguson, the Republican responsible, participated in this year’s primaries, general election, and runoff Georgia’s high-profile contest for Senate, although his campaign website indicates he now lives in an entirely different county. Both his old residence and his new locale are reportedly within his Congressional district, but the respective areas are served by different representatives in both chambers of the state legislature, suggesting Ferguson may have cast ballots for races in which the winner wouldn’t even represent where he is actually living — although terms of at least two years and sometimes remarkably close results in more locally oriented races make the stakes clear.
Ferguson sold his prior residence in April, which was the month before the state’s primaries, but it doesn’t seem early voting in those races would have started until May — seemingly indicating there is no way he cast a ballot in at least that election while still actually residing in the county where he formerly lived. A spokesperson for Ferguson claimed the Congressman “is currently in the process of transitioning his residency to his new home in Pike County.” The Secretary of State’s office, still led by prominent Republican Brad Raffensperger, who won re-election, indicated there was no active investigation into Ferguson’s potentially illegal votes because nobody made a formal complaint.
Notably, Ferguson — who was once mayor of the town in which the house he sold in April sits — supported challenges to the legitimacy of the 2020 election results. He was among the Republicans in Congress who signed on in support of a Texas lawsuit challenging the results from several states where Biden prevailed over Trump — a case the Supreme Court rejected.
He’s not even the only Republican ensnared in residency concerns. State investigators in North Carolina recently passed off a probe of Mark Meadows to the state attorney general’s office for consideration of possible charges after he voted while registered at a residence in the state where it was unclear he ever actually lived. Herschel Walker, the Republican who recently lost the Senate runoff in Georgia, was also reported to be continuing to claim a homestead exemption on a Texas residence despite registering and voting in Georgia. Walker was also mired in other lies, like deception about his professional background. He even claimed he worked in law enforcement — holding up a badge during a debate, but there was never any apparent record of a serious position. A former local official in Georgia compared Walker’s status to that of a junior ranger, which is available to children.
