“You do realize Sheba is my dead dog, right?”

In the days that followed, complaints poured in from Georgians who had received unsolicited voter registration applications addressed to deceased parents, late spouses, children, and other people who were very obviously ineligible to register at those addresses.

The mailings were alarming, so my office opened an investigation.

As we dove deeper, we traced the mailings to an organization called Ready to Register — a group linked to America PAC. This is the high-profile political organization founded and funded by billionaire Elon Musk.

While a voter registration application is not a ballot and receiving one does not automatically place anyone on our voter rolls, third-party organizations that insert themselves into the registration process have a responsibility to use accurate information and obey the law. Intentionally attempting to mislead citizens or register someone known to be ineligible is illegal, full stop. If someone deliberately violates the law, the consequences are severe.

In Georgia, we’ve seen this movie before and know how it likely ends.

In 2014, while Gov. Brian Kemp served as secretary of state, the New Georgia Project launched an ambitious statewide voter-registration campaign ahead of the midterm elections. Founded by Stacey Abrams and later led by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), the organization raised millions of dollars and promised to transform Georgia’s electorate.

The campaign produced plenty of national attention for Abrams, then the minority leader of the Georgia House. What it did not produce was a reliable collection of legitimate voter registration applications.

The New Georgia Project claimed to have submitted approximately 85,000 applications, a paltry amount given its money and hype. But as county election officials processed the forms, they reported countless problems: alleged forgeries, missing information, duplicates, illegible handwriting, and applicants whose identities or addresses were not verifiable.

The avalanche of problems was widespread. In Muscogee County alone, the elections director estimated that approximately 80% of the roughly 10,000 applications submitted by the organization contained deficiencies.

Rather than acknowledge failure, Abrams launched a public-relations blitz against Kemp’s office — never missing an opportunity to put herself on camera. She appeared before the media beside boxes supposedly representing tens of thousands of applications and accused the secretary of state of refusing to process them.

That accusation ignored two fundamental facts: County election officials, not the secretary of state, process voter-registration applications, and applications for “Mickey Mouse” and other ineligible people or fictional characters could not simply be added to the voter rolls.

Abrams and the New Georgia Project nevertheless falsely claimed that tens of thousands of applications had disappeared into a bureaucratic “black hole.” Allied activists later occupied the Secretary of State’s office, resulting in eight arrests. A lawsuit sought to force election officials to add disputed applicants to Georgia’s voter rolls.

But press conferences and cheap political rhetoric are not evidence, and a judge quickly rejected the lawsuit.

In 2018, Abrams was running against Kemp to become Georgia’s next governor. She renewed her accusations of voter suppression and recycled her ridiculous claims of voter suppression.

After losing that election, Abrams refused to offer a traditional concession, became a full-fledged election denier, and challenged the legitimacy of Georgia’s electoral system. Her allies at Fair Fight Action carried those claims into federal court and lost repeatedly.

This has happened before, and it could again if we are not careful. In our office, the price of excellence is constant vigilance.

Since taking office, we have worked around the clock to turn Georgia into the nation’s leader for electoral administration. In short, we make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

Georgia verifies the citizenship of voters. We require photo identification and conduct routine list maintenance to remove registrations belonging to people who have died, relocated, or otherwise become ineligible. Georgia rigorously tests equipment, enforces precise chain-of-custody procedures, and has a rigorous auditing process.

Election integrity and voter access are not competing goals. Georgia delivers both.

But know this: The fight to maintain confidence at the ballot box is not partisan. If an organization on the Left submits fraudulent applications, we act accordingly. If an organization connected to one of the most prominent conservative political donors in the country does the same thing, they aren’t spared from scrutiny.

DOES CITIZENSHIP MATTER ANYMORE? IF NOT, NEITHER DOES VOTING

Left, right, or center, we do not care who you are, whom you support, or which candidate you hope will benefit. If you break Georgia’s election laws, you will be held accountable.

We will not allow partisan operations from either side to undermine what Georgia has built. We will protect our election integrity, count every lawful vote, and enforce the law without fear or favor.

Brad Raffensperger is Georgia’s secretary of state.