Pro-Voting Groups Sue Over Georgia Law Making It Easier to Challenge Voter Eligibility
Pro-voting groups, New Georgia Project and A. Philip Randolph Institute, filed a lawsuit this week challenging voter suppression law Senate Bill 189, which creates more pathways to challenge a voter’s eligibility.
S.B. 189, which was signed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in May, makes it easier to invalidate a voter’s eligibility, especially through claims that they don’t meet residency requirements to vote. For example, someone has “probable cause” to purge someone from voter rolls if they registered to vote in or filed a “homestead exemption” in another jurisdiction.
The plaintiffs argue this violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) because under that law, an election official can only remove voters from the registration list if they confirm in writing that they have moved or if they receive written notice that their address needs to be confirmed and they do not vote or otherwise confirm their address with election officials during the next two federal election cycles.
The lawsuit alleges election officials in Chatham, Forsyth, Gwinnett and Spalding counties have not met these requirements and have “purged voters based on unvetted documentation and unreliable information provided by private citizens, such as screenshots of purported property records or social media posts.”
Also, another provision in S.B. 189 forces unhoused voters to receive their election mail at their county registrar’s office, instead of choosing to receive it from a post office box, homeless shelter or any other mailing address.
The plaintiffs claim this violates the NVRA along with the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution because no other voters are subjected to this, and the law “imposes discriminatory, arbitrary, and unjustified burdens on unhoused voters without a permanent address, particularly those who lack the means to travel to their county registrar’s office to obtain their election mail.”
The groups say this is particularly harmful in terms of voter challenges because these voters may not be receiving election mail asking them to confirm their address, which could result in them being purged from voter rolls.
In the lawsuit, the groups ask a federal district court in Atlanta to block the implementation of this law and order Raffensperger and election officials to restore voters to the registration list who were improperly removed due to this legislation.
The plaintiffs explained this case is so important because “hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters have had their eligibility to vote challenged” since 2022, and many of them have been improperly removed and disenfranchised. This will continue unless the court takes action, the groups argued.
This is far from the first time Georgia, behind the reins of Raffensperger, has targeted its voter rolls. Last month, Raffensperger announced he was conducting an audit of “potential” noncitizens who are registered to vote.