Secretary of State Karen Handel says decision will allow non-citizens to vote in Georgia.
In a letter released Monday, the Justice Department said the Georgia voter-verification program – which uses Social Security numbers and driver’s license data to check if prospective voters are citizens – is frequently inaccurate and has a “discriminatory effect” on minorities.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that DOJ lawyers said the office of Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel had created a system that “does not produce accurate and reliable information and that thousands of citizens who are in fact eligible to vote under Georgia law have been flagged.”
"This flawed system frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote," Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said in a letter.
Handel, a possible Republican candidate for governor in 2010, slammed the DOJ’s decision. In a statement she said it “shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections.”“DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting, instead siding with the ACLU and MALDEF (The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund). “Clearly, politics took priority over common sense and good public policy.”Photos: AP, Georgia Secretary of State
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13 comments:
These illegals sure do cause a lot of problems.
Thanks for keeping us informed.
How dare they criticize Georgia and its voting poilicies! Its only been 140 years since the 15th amendment. They need time to adjust. Then that pesky 24th amendment, I swear the Feds are harrassing them!
So apparantly it is now "discriminatory" to allow only legitimate citizens to vote.
12:58 This has nothing to do with the 24th. If you are not a citizen you should not be allowed to vote. ACORN will love this, calling it now Dems by a landslide next go around in GA
I wish someone would explain why it is discriminatory to ask someone to prove they are a legal citizen before they vote. Voting is a right for each AMERICAN citizen. Therefore, why is it a problem to ask someone to prove their citizenship???
Registration to vote should include a process that verifies a person's credentials and citizenship. I don't know about Georgia, but in NC you don't even have to show your id at the poll before you are allowed to cast your vote. I think that's BS.
Wow! I wonder if Ms. King in the article is related to MLK? Why is it so hard for someone to show their ID in order to vote? A driver's license? Social Security card? That's discrimination? So Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics are less capable of showing ID? Wow, talk about a society based on "victimhood".
I'm not sure I see what is being "discriminatory" about making sure that only actual citizens who are eligible voters can vote. This would appear to be a clear win for voter fraud.
anon @ 10:03 -- don't believe the hype. Do some research and find out how often "voter fraud" has occurred in recent history. It's been charged lots -- but only proven in a couple of cases and those appeared more accidental than intentional. The whole "voter fraud" scare is a scam cooked up by the right-wing to disenfranchise traditionally powerless minorities.
Is showing ID that hard? It is if you don't have any. And if you don't have and have never had a car, why would you have a driver's license? And using your social security card as ID is against the freakin' law (yes I know lots of places do it now, but it's still illegal -- and the rise of identity theft shows the prescience of that decision).
If you're a legal citizen, you should certainly have some sort of government-issued ID card, even if you're not a driver. They can be picked up at any DMV for $10 and can last for up to eight years. You need nothing else...except proof you're, you know, here legally?
No car and no driver license. But, somehow, people are supposed to be able to get an ID @ the DMV...LOL. It's a free country.
Apparently Loretta King recommended to her superiors that the DOJ drop its complaint against black panthers judged to have intimidated voters at a polling place in Philadelphia, Nov. 4, 2008.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/30/no-3-at-justice-okd-panther-reversal/?feat=home_cube_position1&
EXCLUSIVE: No. 3 at Justice OK'd Panther reversal
Case involved polling place in Philadelphia
By Jerry Seper
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in Philadelphia during November's election, according to interviews.
anon @ 10:03 -- don't believe the hype. Do some research and find out how often "voter fraud" has occurred in recent history. It's been charged lots -- but only proven in a couple of cases and those appeared more accidental than intentional. The whole "voter fraud" scare is a scam cooked up by the right-wing to disenfranchise traditionally powerless minorities.
Is showing ID that hard? It is if you don't have any. And if you don't have and have never had a car, why would you have a driver's license? And using your social security card as ID is against the freakin' law (yes I know lots of places do it now, but it's still illegal -- and the rise of identity theft shows the prescience of that decision).
This is a clear misrepresentation of the facts, since hundreds of thousands of ineligible and illegal and dead voters have been expunged from state voter rolls in the last 10 years.
Just how far can the progressive narrative get from reality?
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