ATLANTA, GA – Today, a coalition of civil rights organizations filed an emergency motion in Georgia federal district court to make sure that persons inaccurately flagged as non-citizens under Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s flawed “exact match" system can vote. Kemp’s “exact match” voter registration process relies on outdated citizenship data which identifies naturalized citizens as non-citizens, forcing them to track down a deputy registrar before they can vote, even if they already produced proof of citizenship when they registered to vote originally. 

However, there is not a guaranteed deputy registrar at every polling location. Therefore, naturalized citizens may be required to travel to the county seat to resolve an error in their registration that they did not cause. Moreover, recently naturalized citizens have been told that they cannot fax or mail their proof of citizenship, they must present it in-person. For voters temporarily out of the state, this is an absolute bar to voting.

The emergency motion asks only that these voters be treated the same as everyone else on the pending list and be permitted to show their proof of citizenship to their poll worker in-person or mail or fax their proof of citizenship with their absentee ballot application.

Of the 51,111 voter registrations that were “pending as a result of a no-match, 80.15 percent were submitted by minority registrants. Over 3,000 of those individuals have been flagged as potential non-citizens based on outdated and unreliable data. They should have a fair and reasonable opportunity to prove their citizenship and vote.

“Georgia voters can’t afford to wait,” said Danielle Lang, senior legal counsel, voting rights and redistricting at the Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “Their fundamental right to vote on November 6 is imperiled by no fault of their own, but rather by Kemp’s continued use of the state’s flawed exact match process. The voters impacted by this process are often newly naturalized citizens voting for the first time. We should be welcoming them to our political community, not interrogating them.”

“Secretary Kemp’s much-maligned ‘exact match’ system is a travesty,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “It burdens voters with correcting mistakes caused by the State and its faulty databases, and places those burdens disproportionately on minority voters. This is played out starkly in the unreasonable burdens imposed specifically on new Americans, many of whom will not be able to vote unless relief is granted now.”

"As an organization, our core mission is to empower our Asian-American communities to be fully active in civic life,” said Phi Nguyễn, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. “This includes helping immigrants navigate the naturalization process so that they can exercise one of the hallmarks of citizenship: the right to vote. It's particularly heartbreaking to witness new American voters being immediately disenfranchised because of unnecessary barriers created by the state of Georgia."  

CLC, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta are serving as counsel in the case representing a coalition of civil rights groups: Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Asian-Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, New Georgia Project, Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, and ProGeorgia State Table. The suit alleges that Georgia’s protocol violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The original lawsuit was filed on October 11. Today an amended complaint was filed, adding Common Cause and the Joseph & Evelyn Lowery Institute as additional plaintiffs.

Visit our case page to read the declarations of our plaintiffs: Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda v. Kemp.

Enforcement of donor transparency requirements would give voters in November knowledge about who is funding election ads

WASHINGTON  - Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Heritage Action for America, the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, violated the law by failing to disclose the contributors who funded hundreds of thousands in independent expenditures.

Following a recent D.C. District Court opinion striking down an FEC rule that had undermined legal disclosure requirements, the FEC issued new guidance clarifying that dark money groups reporting such spending must disclose all donors who gave for “political purposes” and for the purpose of furthering any of the group’s independent expenditures. The new guidance first applied to the quarterly reports due October 15, for contributions received after August 4. 

Heritage Action issued a press release on August 8 announcing its plans to “to spend $2.5 million and back 12 candidates this November,” and its executive director told McClatchy, “What we’re telling donors is, every dollar we raise over our budget we can effectively pour more into these races.” But even though Heritage Action was raising contributions for independent expenditures, it failed to report the identity of any donors.

“Heritage Action officials stated publicly on August 8 that the group would ‘raise’ money ‘to back 12 candidates,’ and then spent six figures supporting those same candidates. Under the D.C. District Court’s decision and the FEC’s guidance, Heritage Action should have disclosed at least some donors on its October quarterly report, but failed to do so,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal reform at CLC. “The question now is whether the FEC will enforce the law.”

Of the 51,111 voter registrations that were “pending” as a result of a no-match, 80.15 percent were submitted by minority registrants

ATLANTA, GA – Today, a coalition of civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Georgia against Secretary of State Brian Kemp – the state’s top election official – to block the state from enforcing their “exact match” protocol that places tens of thousands of voter registration applications in suspense for errors as small as a misplaced hyphen, dash, or space. The result of the state’s protocol is the flagging for potential removal of thousands of registrations for innocuous mistakes such as misread handwriting or the incorrect transposition of driver’s license digits. These errors are often not the registrants’ fault and are unrelated to their eligibility.

Based on data produced by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, of the 51,111 voter registrations that were “pending” on July 4 as a result of a no-match, 80.15 percent were submitted by Black, Latino, and Asian-American registrants, partly due to the higher likelihood of misspelling or the omission of a letter or character. Earlier this week, the AP reported that 53,000 registrations are now in “pending” and that nearly 70 percent of those are Black registrants.

The system also relies on outdated citizenship data from the Department of Driver Services, which erroneously flags naturalized citizens as non-citizens – even when registrants present proof of citizenship upon initial registration. It appears that Secretary Kemp has no protocol for ensuring that even voters who provide proof of citizenship with their registration are not still flagged and asked to provide the same information again. This leads to confusion and suppresses voting.

Nearly every other state treats failure to match a database differently than Georgia. In the case of a mismatch, the voter is still fully registered. First-time voters are required to show a form of identification at the polls when they vote for the first time. This process provides the same amount of election security and imposes less barriers to voters.

Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law are serving as counsel in the case representing a coalition of civil rights groups: Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Asian-Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, New Georgia Project, Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, and ProGeorgia State Table. The suit alleges that Georgia’s protocol violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

“Georgia’s ‘exact match’ protocol has resulted in the cancellation or rejection of tens of thousands of voter registration applications in the past. The reintroduction of this practice, which is known to be discriminatory and error-ridden, is appalling,” said Danielle Lang, senior legal counsel, voting rights and redistricting at CLC. “This policy adds nothing to the security of Georgia elections but causes unnecessary confusion and additional burdens for eligible citizens who wish to exercise their fundamental right to vote.”

"In 2016, we helped stop Georgia's ‘exact match’ protocol that kicked thousands of voters off the voter rolls—some of them simply because they have uncommon Asian or Latino names that others commonly misspell,” said Phi Nguyễn, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. “It is unacceptable that only two years later, we are once again asking a court to step in to end an almost identical ‘exact match’ protocol that threatens to disenfranchise thousands more from our communities."

In 2017, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed House Bill 268 into law, which codified a voter registration database “exact match” protocol. HB 268 was introduced shortly after the settlement of a lawsuit filed in 2016 by CLC and others, which challenged a similar voter registration database “exact match” requirement that had been implemented by Kemp. A 2009 audit from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general that said matching voter records with a Social Security database produced inaccurate matching.

Given recent news reports, it is important to clarify that voters on this “pending” list for “exact match” issues are entitled to vote a regular ballot in person at the polls if they show Georgia voter photo ID. It is possible, however, that they will not be able to vote by mail or may have their vote by mail ballots rejected because Georgia absentee ballots do not require photo ID.

*Co-counsel in the case also include Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP and the Law Office of Bryan L. Sells, LLC.

Enforcement of donor transparency requirements would give voters in November knowledge about who is funding election ads

WASHINGTON  - Campaign Legal Center (CLC) released a new analysis of the impact of the FEC’s inadequate disclosure rule that was struck down in an August 3 DC District Court decision. The FEC’s now-vacated rule allowed as much as $769 million in dark money to flow into federal elections since the 2010 campaign cycle. The document also analyzes new FEC guidance issued October 4 about disclosure requirements in the wake of the court’s decision.

Laws passed by Congress require disclosure of donors who give to support a group’s “independent expenditures,” which are ads that expressly advocate for or against federal candidates. But an FEC rule narrowed the requirement and defeated the law’s transparency requirements. The D.C. District Court struck down this rule, and a result, groups that make independent expenditures must now report contributors over $200. Between September 19, the day after the court’s order took effect, and October 3, groups now subject to disclosure reported more than $15 million on independent expenditures.

“The explosion in dark money is often attributed to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, but these figures show that the FEC must also shoulder the blame,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal reform at CLC.

Under the FEC’s new guidance, contributions received on or after August 4, 2018 are subject to disclosure, for independent expenditures made on or after September 18. The next quarterly report is due October 15.