👏 👏 👏 Judge Leigh Martin May. 👏 👏 👏 Lawyers protecting Voting Rights. 👎 👎 👎 Republican Voter Suppression.
Vote for Stacey Abrams ☑️
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Georgia election officials to stop summarily tossing absentee ballots because of mismatched signatures, delivering a crucial win to voting-rights advocates — and to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams — less than two weeks before Election Day.
The ruling resulted from two lawsuits filed earlier this month after election officials in a single Atlanta suburb, Gwinnett County, rejected hundreds of absentee ballots with signature discrepancies, missing addresses or incorrect birth years.
The plaintiffs, including the ACLU, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Coalition for Good Governance, argued that allowing nonexpert election officials to judge the validity of signatures without giving voters the chance to contest the decisions amounted to unconstitutional voter suppression.
U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May agreed, and she ordered Secretary of State Brian Kemp to instruct all local election officials to stop rejecting absentee ballots over the mismatched signatures. Instead, such ballots will be marked “provisional,” and the voter will be given the right to appeal the decision or confirm his or her identity. Kemp and the Gwinnett County election board were named as defendants in the suit.
“Kemp, who is white, has promoted some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation, including one new law known as “exact match” that requires the information provided on voter registration applications to exactly match existing driver and Social Security records. He also accused the New Georgia Project of improper registration practices, but his investigation found no wrongdoing.”
#georgia#gwinnett county#aclu#coalition for good governance#civil rights#voting rights#stacey abrams#gubernatorial candidate#georgia governor#brian kemp#election rigging#rigged election#provisional#provisional ballot#exact match#new georgia project#voter suppression#georgia voter suppression#racism#racism in america#racist republicans#black history#leigh martin may#judge leigh martin may#black voters#black voting rights