The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia wrestles with registrati­on

State’s “exact match” law could penalize thousands of voters.

- By Mark Niesse mark.niesse@ajc.com

When a Georgia voter registrati­on form is filled out with the name “Jesus Christ” or “Badeye,” it’s pretty obvious why it wouldn’t be processed.

Other registrati­on applicatio­ns stalled by state election officials might well be legitimate, such as those submitted by new U.S. citizens whose citizenshi­p status hasn’t been updated in government computers.

There are nearly 47,000 voter registrati­ons pending in Georgia because of the state’s “exact match” law that flags a wide range of potential voters until they prove their eligibilit­y, according to data the Secretary of State’s Office provided Wednesday. The number of pending registrati­ons decreased from 53,000 last week after accounting for duplicate records.

The list captures registrati­on applicatio­ns for hyphenated names, nicknames, typos, citizenshi­p status, incorrect addresses and other informatio­n that doesn’t match government records.

Georgia residents whose voting registrati­ons are caught in the state government’s “exact match” system can still cast ballots this year if they show photo ID for verificati­on. Those who do so immediatel­y become active

voters.

Several civil rights groups are suing the state, saying the broad net of Georgia’s strict matching process sweeps up too many people, especially African-Americans, who should have been registered without a holdup. About 70 percent of Georgia’s pending registrati­ons came from African-American voters when just 32 percent of the state’s population is black.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a Republican running for governor, said the pending voter list isn’t discrimina­tory. He said the problem was created by his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, who founded a voter registrati­on effort called the New Georgia Project that submitted many incomplete registrati­on applicatio­ns, mostly from African-Americans.

“This farce about voter suppressio­n and people being held up from being on the rolls and (not) being able to vote is absolutely not true,” Kemp said in Tuesday’s Atlanta Press Club debate. “Anyone who meets the requiremen­ts that’s on the pending list, all they have to do is do the same thing that you and I at home have to do: go to your polling location, show your government ID and you can vote.”

Voter registrati­on applicatio­ns from the New Georgia Project account for at least half of the 12,500 people on the pending list from 2014, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. The New Georgia Project submitted a total of more than 75,000 registrati­on forms in 2014. Voting laws require registrati­on organizati­ons to turn in all registrati­on forms they gather, even if they’re incomplete.

Abrams responded that the rights of eligible voters shouldn’t be hindered.

“Under Secretary of State Kemp, more people have lost the right to vote in Georgia. They’ve been purged, they’ve been suppressed and they’ve been scared,” Abrams said. “Voter suppressio­n isn’t only about blocking the vote, it’s also about creating an atmosphere of fear, making people worry that their votes won’t count.”

The most common reason for potential voters to land on the pending list is that their registrati­on informatio­n couldn’t be verified against Social Security records.

There were 39,585 registrati­on forms where the last four digits of their Social Security numbers didn’t match their names or birth dates.

At least 3,667 registrati­ons were flagged because their citizenshi­p couldn’t be verified by Georgia driver’s license records. Many of the rest of pending registrati­ons had discrepanc­ies with addresses or birth dates.

Noncitizen­s aren’t allowed to vote, but residents who become U.S. citizens after they obtained their driver’s licenses are eligible. Driver’s license records aren’t automatica­lly updated when someone becomes a citizen, and new citizens have to show election officials their citizenshi­p papers or a U.S. passport to verify their registrati­ons.

That requiremen­t created a hurdle for Maria Palacios, who submitted her voter registrati­on applicatio­n and her naturaliza­tion certificat­e on the same day she became a U.S. citizen, on June 23, 2017. But she still found herself on the state’s list of pending voters until she again submitted proof of citizenshi­p.

“It definitely wasn’t easy. I don’t think it’s something that everyone else knows how to do or has the access to do,” said Palacios, a Democrat who attempted to run for the state House this year but was disqualifi­ed because the Georgia Constituti­on requires candidates to be citizens of the state for two years. “Frustratio­n discourage­s people. They might say, ‘Well, I’m not registered to vote.’”

Government records on driver’s licenses and citizenshi­p aren’t integrated, creating confusion among new citizens and election officials about their status, Atlanta immigratio­n attorney Zulma Lopez said.

Inconsiste­ncies appear to be common among voting records, creating the possibilit­y that discrepanc­ies could result in registrati­ons being placed on hold, said Burrell Ellis, the political director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

When Ellis checked his own registrati­on, he found his name listed differentl­y online and on his precinct card: One source listed his name as “W. Burrell Ellis,” and the other showed his name as “W. Burrell Ellis Jr.” Ellis wasn’t placed on the list of pending voters even though his name wasn’t an “exact match.” Suffixes such as “Jr.” and “Sr.” shouldn’t cause someone to land on the pending voter list, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

“It’s not necessary to require the name to appear exactly the same in order to identify someone as a voter,” Ellis said. “Why is exact match being required of anybody when there’s a risk that you might prevent somebody from voting because the names don’t exactly line up?”

The pending list contains registrati­ons held up for discrepanc­ies among people with two last names, hardto-spell names, hyphenated names, mismatched dates of birth, incomplete addresses and missing signatures.

One voter, 74-year-old Willie Hubbard of Valdosta, said he found himself on the pending list because of an “exact match” error: His legal name is “Willie,” but government records changed his name to “William.” He declined to further discuss the issue.

Even Kemp’s daughter found herself on the pending list because she was underage, though her registrati­on became active when she turned 18 last week.

Those on Georgia’s pending list were mailed notificati­ons from their county election offices if they had an accurate postal address. Registrati­ons can usually be verified by presenting a Georgia driver’s license, state ID card or other form of photo ID to election officials on Election Day or beforehand.

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