Georgia Voting Rights Case

I’ve uploaded the complaint in the case of Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda et al. v. Brian Kemp filed in the United States District Court for the North District of Georgia.  This is the lawsuit challenging Georgia’s “exact match” protocol for voter registration.  As noted in paragraph 9 of the Complaint:

A preliminary review of data produced by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office on July 4, 2018 indicates that approximately 51,111 voter registration applicants were in “pending” status for reasons related to the “exact match” protocol, i.e., the purported failure to verify against DDS or SSA identity or citizenship data. Approximately 80.15% of those pending applications were submitted by African-American, Latino and Asian-American applicants. Only 9.83% of the “pending” for failure to verify applications were submitted by applicants identifying as White.

What I did not realize was that:

HB 268 [the statute enacting the “exact match” protocol] was introduced in 2017 on the heels of the settlement of a lawsuit filed the previous year, which challenged a substantially similar voter registration database matching protocol that had been implemented administratively by Defendant Kemp. HB 268 was a transparent effort by the Georgia General Assembly and Secretary of State’s office to undermine reforms achieved by that settlement. Governor Deal, the Georgia General Assembly, and Defendant Kemp were all on notice that HB 268 would impose severe burdens on applicants’ right to vote and have a severe discriminatory impact on African-American, Latino and Asian-American applicants.

Complaint ¶ 7 at 4-5.

I will try to update the filings as are necessary.