Constitutional Law

Federal Court Orders Georgia Officials to Retreat On 'Flagging' Voters

A federal appeals court ordered the Georgia Secretary of State to contact scores of voters to inform them that they are indeed eligible to vote. The order from a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rapped the Secretary of State Karen Handel for implementing a voter verification system that resulted in the questioning of more than 4,000 voters about their citizenship and flagging more than 50,000 as potentially ineligible to vote. The 11th Circuit ordered Handel to “make diligent and immediate efforts to notify, in a uniform manner, every person whose voter registration remains flagged.” The state must also allow voters who had their registrations questioned the chance to vote, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Laughlin McDonald of the ACLU Voting Rights Project lauded the appeals court’s action, telling the AJC “that nobody will be automatically purged from the voter lists.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on October 28, 2008 (boomark / email).