Georgia's Voter Registration Violates Civil Rights, Lawsuit Says

GAINESVILLE, GA — A lawsuit was filed on Wednesday alleging Georgia's voter registration process violates federal law.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of several groups, according to Project Vote. The Georgia NAACP, Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda and Asian Americans Advancing Justice say the state's exact-match voter registration verification scheme violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and denies eligible Georgians their right to vote.

The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, says the state's voter verification process requires all of the letters and numbers in the applicant’s name; date of birth; driver’s license number; or last four digits of the Social Security number to exactly match the same letters and numbers in the state’s Department of Drivers Service or Social Security Administration databases.

If a single letter, number, hyphen, space or apostrophe doesn't match the database information, and the applicant fails to correct the mismatch in 40 days, the application is automatically rejected.

“Georgia is one of the few states that continues to disenfranchise eligible citizens based upon a strict database matching protocol that is not mandated by HAVA or by state law,” said Francys Johnson, president of the Georgia NAAC,. “This litigation against Secretary Kemp is part of our ongoing post-Shelby election administration monitoring program in Georgia. This case illustrates why the NAACP will mortgage every asset we have to defend the unfettered access to the ballot. It was paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors.”

Click here to see the entire complaint.

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