A federal judge has ordered Georgia Republicans to protect all provisional ballots and allow voters to check and see if their vote was counted.
According to a press release from Common Cause Georgia and the Brennan Center For Justice:
A federal court in Atlanta on Monday issued an order requiring the state to take a number of steps to protect voters who had to cast provisional ballots because of registration problems. Among those steps: Georgia officials must establish a hotline and website for voters to check if their ballots were counted; conduct a thorough review of provisional ballots; and provide detailed information about every provisional ballot cast in Tuesday’s election.
The order came at the request of Common Cause Georgia and its attorneys at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law and the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. In a lawsuit filed Monday night, Common Cause of Georgia alleged that Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp recklessly publicized vulnerabilities in the state’s voter registration database, which exacerbated voters’ risk of having their registration information manipulated.
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This is a big win for the voters, Democrats, and Stacey Abrams
Brian Kemp and the Republican Party have been trying to begin the transition and take power in Georgia by attempting to shut down the election. The Abrams campaign has taken legal action to make sure that every vote is counted and with the Democratic candidate roughly 20,000 votes short of triggering an automatic runoff, any ruling that helps to gets all the votes counted is a big win for Democrats.
An important victory for voting rights in Georgia
“The right to vote is fundamental, and no one should lose that right because of mistakes in the voter registration database. The Georgians who voted in this election deserve better than what the state wanted to give them,†said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s democracy program, who argued the case with Farrah Berse of Paul, Weiss on Thursday in Atlanta.
Republicans went as far as to not provide power cords for voting machines in Democratic areas. The GOP tried everything imaginable to deny the right to vote in Georgia and they still might lose.
While the nation’s eyes are on the Florida recounts, the fight for voting rights in Georgia rages on.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
