One of the leading organizations in the fight for Black voters‘ rights and education sued the state of Georgia over the practice of voter roll purging.
According to GregPalast.com, the suit was filed Wednesday in the United States District Court Northern District of Georgia and accuses Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of violating the National Voter Registration Act by removing around 198,000 citizens who moved from previous addresses listed on their voter registration.
The case names LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter, Barbara Arnwine, founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition and C.K. Hoffler of Rainbow PUSH were named as plaintiffs. They are working against the clock to reinstate those purged prior to the Dec. 7 voter registration deadline so voters can participate in the Jan. 5 runoff elections between Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler who face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively.
The suit claims voters were improperly purged when they had not moved residences. The state also alleged voters submitted change of address forms, which was disputed by the USPS. Lastly, the suit says Georgia onboarded a contractor who used the wrong voter list and was not on the approved list of licensees by USPS.
Raffensperger remains in a hotbed of controversy, stemming from the presidential election and Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in the states of Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He later accused South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham of pressuring him to exclude ballots.
Raffensperger follows in the shoes of his predecessor, Gov. Brian Kemp who was accused of the same disenfranchisement. Critics claimed Kemp purged more than 340,000 voters from the state’s registration rolls during his time as Secretary of State, an accusation that became central during his gubernatorial run against activist and politician Stacey Abrams in 2018.
Kemp was also accused of other forms of voter suppression including placing registration applications on hold, failing to address hiccups at majority Black voting precincts, along with absentee and provisional ballot complications. Kemp, who was accused of tampering as head of the state’s election process, did not step down from his post until two days before the election.
Abrams’s organization Fair Fight sued the state board of elections in 2018.
The suits aim to highlight the history of voter suppression aimed at primarily at Black voters. Organizers and voter rights activists want to reform Georgia’s current election system, in hopes that the unconstitutional obstacles which attempt to disenfranchise Black voters are reversed.
SEE ALSO:
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Lawsuit Demands Nearly 200,000 Purged Georgia Voters Be Reinstated Ahead Of Runoff Races was originally published on newsone.com
