CLC Files Lawsuit to Protect Overseas and Military Voters’ Right to Vote Ahead of 2024 Election

Washington, D.C. — Yesterday, Campaign Legal Center, on behalf of Secure Families Initiative, filed a lawsuit challenging S.B. 189, a new Georgia law that will make it more difficult for counties to dismiss unsubstantiated challenges to an American’s voter registration or their eligibility to vote.     
Many states, including Georgia, allow a registered voter to challenge a fellow American’s voter registration or eligibility to vote. In recent years, these laws have been abused by bad actors who bring hundreds of thousands of unproven challenges.

“Brave service members, their families and other Americans abroad should have the same opportunity to vote as any other American. Our democracy works best when every voter can participate, but S.B. 189 and frivolous mass challenges run contrary to that goal,” said CLC’s Senior Vice President Paul Smith. “CLC is fighting to ensure that all Americans, including those overseas and abroad, exercise their fundamental right to vote in this upcoming election.” 

"We are gravely concerned by the disenfranchisement that these disruptive new election rules will disproportionately have on Georgia’s military voters, who rely on mailing paper ballots from wherever our nation’s security sends them,” said Sarah Streyder, Executive Director of Secure Families Initiative. “Georgia contributes the 3rd-most recruits to our nation’s military of any state, 22 percent of whom identify as Black, and every person serving their nation deserves the right to vote and to have that vote certified.”

Background: 
A new Georgia law, S.B. 189, threatens to prevent Americans living and serving overseas from making their voice heard this November. This law puts voters who have temporarily moved or are temporarily without permanent residential addresses -- such as military members deployed overseas -- at risk of being wrongly challenged.   

Military and overseas voters already face more barriers than the average American in exercising their freedom to vote. They have to request an absentee ballot because they can’t vote in-person, they don’t have the benefit of drop boxes, and living abroad could also mean mail times are less reliable.   
Mass challenge laws have long been used in this country to target recently naturalized citizens, voters of color, student voters and voters with disabilities. S.B. 189 is now targeting the brave people who serve our country. 

CLC represents Secure Families Initiative, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of military members and their families, in the lawsuit, which argues that S.B. 189 violates federal law and infringes on military and overseas voters’ fundamental freedom to vote.