LAWRENCEVILLE, GA–Today the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL), acting for a coalition of voting rights advocates, notified the Georgia Secretary of State and Gwinnett County that the County has been illegally sustaining pre-election challenges to the eligibility of registered voters, and that continuing to do so for thousands of recent mass challenges will violate state and federal law. LCCRUL sent the letter on behalf of its clients, the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, Gwinnett County Branch of the NAACP, GALEO Latino Community Development Fund, Inc., Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Inc., League of Women Voters of Georgia, and Common Cause. The notice letter is a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit under the NVRA.
The notice letter explains that any action by the Gwinnett County Board of Elections and Registration (BORE) to sustain residency-based mass challenges without rigorous individualized examination fails to comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Such actions also contravene the NVRA’s ban on systematically removing voters from election rolls within 90 days of an election.
The thousands of challenges to registered voters are an intended consequence of the enactment of SB 202, Georgia’s 2021 omnibus voter suppression bill, to create more barriers to the ballot box, particularly in counties, such as Gwinnett, with significant populations of Black, Latinx, AAPI and other voters of color, and in counties with increasingly diverse electorates.
Eligible Gwinnett County voters who have received a notification from the BORE that their voter eligibility has been challenged should contact the Gwinnett County Board of Registration and Elections and its election staff directly as soon as possible. LCCRUL will continue to monitor developments and remains committed to protecting the rights of Georgia voters.
You may read the letter LCCRUL sent to the BORE and the Georgia Secretary of State here.
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About the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law–The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the Lawyers’ Committee uses legal advocacy to achieve racial justice, fighting inside and outside the courts to ensure that Black people and other people of color have the voice, opportunity, and power to make the promises of our democracy real. For more information, please visit https://lawyerscommittee.org
