53,000 voter registrations put on hold



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More than 53,000 applications for voter registration are pending in Georgia due to a national law requiring the verification of voter information.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that voter registration was reported due to Georgia's exact matching law, which requires voter registration information to match that of a driver's license, a state card or social security. The PA obtained the list of voters on standby through the law on the archives of Georgia.

Voter registration requests may be suspended due to a missing union trait in a family name or data entry errors. Unmatched voter registrations remain outstanding unless candidates correct the discrepancies within 26 months.

Voters whose registration is suspended can still participate in elections if they verify their information.

The law of "exact match" has sparked criticism from advocacy groups that it could cut voters in the upcoming Georgian governorship election between Republican Brian Kemp and the Democrat Stacey Abrams. Kemp is the Georgian Secretary of State for Electoral Control and Voter Registration.

Marsha Appling-Nunez, a constituent, said she had learned she was no longer registered when she tried to access the state's election website. The AP has found its name among voters placed in waiting status.

"I was a little shocked," said Appling-Nunez, a university teacher who had tried to re-register after moving from one suburb of Atlanta to another. "I have always voted. I try to miss no election, including local.

Voters can check their entries with a Georgian driver's license or photo ID when they vote, said Candice Broce, spokeswoman for Kemp. They can also send identification information in advance. If the ID card corrects the discrepancy, they will immediately become active voters with the right to vote normally on Georgia voting machines.

"Not a single voter whose status is pending for failure to audit will be rejected by this election cycle," Kemp said in a statement released in August. "Despite all claims to the contrary, it has never been easier to register in Georgia and participate actively in the electoral process."

An analysis of the list of 53,000 pending voter registration by the AP reveals racial disparities. The list is African-American at 70% in a black state at 32%, reported the AP.

Part of the reason for the many pending requests from African Americans is that they were submitted by the New Georgia Project, an organization founded by Abrams that sought to register non-whites, unmarried women and millennia. Broce said. About 40% of the voters on the pending list came from paper forms submitted by the New Georgia Project in 2014.

The Abrams campaign said Wednesday that Kemp was attacking the right to vote.

"The voting rights of all Americans are sacred and Georgians will not tolerate these attacks on our most basic civil liberties," said an email from the Abrams campaign.

Last year, the General Assembly adopted the Georgian "Perfect Match" Act, which was implemented last February.

A civil rights organization, the Committee of Lawyers for Civil Rights under the Law, threatened to sue the state for violating the law, alleging it had a high error rate and a negative impact on the voters belonging to a minority.

"We have shown that this process disproportionately prevents minority candidates from appearing on the electoral lists," said Julie Houk, a lawyer with the Bar Committee, during an interview with the PA. .

The deadline to register before the Georgian poll was Tuesday. The state now has a record number of 6.9 million registered voters, including 253,902 new registered voters since April.



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