ATLANTA — A federal judge in Atlanta is deciding whether Gwinnett County is unconstitutionally preventing certain people from voting this election year.
Allegations and denials of voter suppression across the state are hot topics between the Democrat and Republican candidates in the race for governor.
The hearing at the Federal courthouse in Downtown Atlanta lasted two hours, and the judge heard accusations from the ACLU attorney that Gwinnett County, and possibly other counties across Georgia, are tossing out hundreds of absentee ballots because the voters who filled out the ballots made minor mistakes on them, such as their signatures not exactly matching their signatures on their voter registration card.
Federal Judge Leigh Martin May said from the bench that she agrees that the signature requirement, for example, is an important way to prevent voter fraud. But she said voters whose absentee ballots are rejected need to be able to fix the mistakes on the ballot forms in time for their ballots to count, because they’re entitled to due process.
Attorneys for Gwinnett County and the state said only a tiny percentage of absentee ballots are rejected, and that there are remedies already in place for voters to make corrections and have their ballots counted.
The Democratic candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams, is accusing the Republican candidate for governor, Brian Kemp of trying to prevent her supporters from voting. Kemp, who is also the Secretary of State in charge of elections, said that’s absurd, and that Abrams is accusing him of upholding state voting laws.
No one from the Secretary of State’s office was available for an interview after the hearing, but attorney Sean Young of ACLU Georgia said the issue is that elections officials are not trained to recognize, for example, when a signature is valid or forged.
“The plaintiffs in our case are not asking to change the signature matching requirement.... but there is tremendous risk of error in that analysis,” Young explained. “They aren’t handwriting experts, people will be disenfranchised through no fault of their own.”
Judge May said she will rule within a couple of days on whether to issue a temporary injunction that could change the way Georgia counties verify their absentee ballots.
