Today, Common Cause joined the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and other civil rights organizations in suing Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp for the state’s discriminatory and unlawful “exact match” voter suppression scheme. The suit alleges that Georgia’s “no match, no vote” protocol violates the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

“Make no mistake, ‘exact match’ is voter suppression by a new name,” said Allegra Chapman, Director of Voting and Elections at Common Cause. “Seventy percent of people impacted by ‘exact match’ are African-American. Georgia has been here before, but now the law is on the side of voter protection. We will continue to fight these suppression schemes to ensure that Georgia voters do not have their vote threatened during this election. We will not stand by and watch the disenfranchisement of legitimate, voting-eligible Georgians.”

As a result of the “exact match” voter-registration protocol, more than 53,000 voter registration applications have been placed in “pending” status. However, “exact match” protocols have been shown to have a high error rate and a substantial, negative impact upon voting-eligible African American, Latino and Asian American Georgians. Consequently, nearly every other state treats failure to match a database differently than Georgia does.

“Common Cause Georgia will continue to fight to protect the voters of the state by standing with our allies to advocate for fair, safe, and transparent elections in Georgia,” said Sara Henderson, Executive Director, Common Cause Georgia.

Common Cause joins the suit Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed along with its partners including Campaign Legal Center, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta and the Law Office of Bryan Sells. The suit was filed on behalf of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta, ProGeorgia State Table, Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, and the New Georgia Project.

Read the Amended Complaint Exhibit 1 Exhibit 2