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ATLANTA – Yotam Oren registered to vote last December, shortly after the ceremony at which he became a US citizen. He attached a copy of his new certificate of naturalization to his voter registration form in Georgia.
But shortly after, Mr. Oren received a letter from his county's election office telling him that he was on the "pending" elector status because his citizenship had not been been checked and that he should show proof of citizenship when he would go to vote.
According to the court records, Oren was finally allowed to vote early in Georgia's highly watched and monitored challenge – but not after following the process that a federal judge would describe as "tedious procedure." " polls.
His case was a key element of a federal lawsuit challenging a Georgian law known as "exact match" on the grounds that the law threatened the right to vote of more than 50,000 voters whose forms of The registration did not correspond exactly to the personal information contained in the government databases. . On Friday, a federal judge described Mr. Oren's experience as "beyond the mere inconvenience" and forced the state to iron out the administrative hurdles faced by eligible voters who had been wrongly identified as non-citizens by the exact matching system.
Mr. Oren's story is just one example of the electoral system in Georgia, which critics say was designed to make it difficult for voters, especially minorities and new citizens, to exercise their right to vote. . Liberals, including Democrat Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, attribute much of the blame to his Republican rival, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, which, according to critics, has a history of electoral repression.
Kemp called the charges a "joke": he facilitated the vote by helping to set up an online voter registration system. He also said that Georgia, with its 6.7 million registered voters, has added about one million voters to its role since the 2010 primary, the first election it presided over. as secretary of state.
The question is fraught with racial and historical resonance. Ms. Abrams seeks to become the first African-American female governor of American history, and she strives to do so in a southern state characterized by electoral repression of racist voters and a strong minority population. growth.
Mr Kemp, who is white, is a staunch supporter of President Trump, who plans to hold a rally for him in Macon on Sunday afternoon.
The following is a guide to the most discussed and discussed voting rights issues in Georgia ahead of Tuesday's election:
The "exact match" throws thousands of people into limbo
Mr. Oren's ordeal was the result of so-called Georgian law of "exact correspondence". It was passed last year, at the request of Mr. Kemp, by the Republican-dominated legislature.
Under the law, county election officials enter the information contained in new voter registration forms into a system that compares them with information entered in the Social Security Administration database or in a database. data managed by the State Department of Driver Services.
Supporters of the law say that the goal is to prevent electoral fraud. Critics say that registrations can be delayed if the smallest details do not match. Requests may be rejected for a missing union trait.
Residents whose applications do not match are placed on a "pending" list, which allows them to vote in the current election. However, if they do not clarify the question within 26 months, their application will be rejected.
The system is also creating problems for new citizens like Mr. Oren, one of the approximately 3,100 people who have been notified of their citizenship status. According to the legal filings in a lawsuit involving the system, people like Mr Oren were automatically placed on the list of people waiting, whether or not they joined their naturalization documents, if they did not put in also update their citizenship status with the Department of Driver Services. And nothing obliges new citizens to make this change.
The law on exact correspondence was the focus of concern last month, when the Associated Press obtained documents from Mr. Kemp's office as part of a public registration application and has found that 53,000 voters were stuck in this "pending" status for failing to meet exact correspondence standards. The news agency revealed that nearly 70% of enrollees were African-Americans.
A number of applicants have been recruited by the New Georgia Project, a constituency created by Ms. Abrams to strengthen the participation of minorities in the electoral process. Mr. Kemp blamed the group for making neglected paper applications.
Some observers have expressed concern that the "pending" status of these voters will create confusion when they go to the polls. In Friday's decision, US District Judge Eleanor L. Ross said Mr. Oren, after learning that he was on the waiting list, had followed "a tedious process requiring two visits to the polls." , his own research and his search for a name and a phone. the number to be given to the election officers so that his citizenship can be verified, all after he has already presented proof of citizenship with his application for elector. "
Mr. Oren's voting ability was hampered by election officers in Fulton County, who had difficulty reaching a person who could change his waiting status to active by presenting himself with his proof of citizenship. The judge's order on Friday broadened the list of election officers authorized to verify citizenship documents and instructed Kemp's office to issue a press release and update his website to clarify the terms and conditions of his appointment. vote of these residents.
Purging inactive voters
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at the University of New York (Georgia), headed by Mr. Kemp, he served 1.5 million voters from his lists between 2012 and 2016. The Atlanta Journal- Constitution reports that 665,000 Georgia voters were served last year.
The state is one of the few to remove voters from lists after they are deemed "inactive". These referrals were confirmed in June by the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision that contemplated a similar program in Ohio.
Proponents of purges say that their intent, like the "exact match" law, is to prevent fraud. But the policies remain very controversial.
In Georgia, residents who have not voted or been in contact with election officials for three years receive a notice by mail asking them to confirm, within 30 days, that their address is still valid.
If election officials do not hear them, they are moved to an "inactive" list and their registration is canceled if they do not vote or contact officials in the next two general elections.
Critics argue that this process could have a disproportionate effect on minority voters and is fundamentally flawed in other respects.
"These voters postcards get, they think it's more a basket they do not have to look at," said Julie M. Houck, senior special advocate of the Civil Rights Lawyers Committee.
Attention, how do you sign
This election season has given rise to a separate controversy over a Georgian law requiring signatures on postal ballots – and requests for postal ballots – to be visually matched to signatures held in the records of county election officials.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued Kemp for violating the law on the grounds that people were essentially denied the right to vote because of the poor quality of their voices. Sean J. Young, legal director of the Georgian chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that about 700 requests for postal ballots and 189 postal votes had been rejected by county officials because of signatures. poorly matched.
On October 24, a judge issued a temporary prohibition order prohibiting county officials from rejecting ballots or applications based on the appearance of false signatures.
Mr. Kemp refused to withdraw
A number of critics of Mr. Kemp have asked that he resign from his position as Secretary of State in order to eliminate any suspicion of electoral outbidding. Former President Jimmy Carter, from Georgia, who wrote to Kemp and told him that moving away from the issue would help "ensure the confidence of our citizens in the outcome," he said.
Mr. Kemp refused to step down, arguing that the most important arbiters of election results were county election officials and that his detractors were merely making political decisions.
Other concerns have emerged. N.A.A.C.P. state conference filed a complaint with the Elections Office for reporting irregularities in touch screen machines in four counties. In some cases, after the voters tried to choose Ms. Abrams, "the machines chose instead the Secretary of State Brian Kemp," N.A.A.C.P. said in a press release.
And many Democrats still suspect that Mr. Kemp's office was somehow behind a recent proposal to close seven of Randolph County's nine black majority polling stations. Mr Kemp claimed that it had nothing to do with this proposal, which had been rejected by the county's council of elections after a national outcry in August.
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