McClatchy: Supreme Court decision halts Georgia voting rights lawsuit

McClatchy: Supreme Court decision halts Georgia voting rights lawsuit

Because Georgia's and Ohio's policies are so similar, the Supreme Court's decision in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute "essentially disposes, unfavorably, of our NVRA claim," said Emmet Bondurant, lead attorney for Common Cause Georgia, which had challenged the state's voter roll maintenance efforts along with the Georgia NAACP. Bondurant withdrew the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta. The filing preserves the right of Common Cause and the NAACP to "challenge the validity of the Georgia purge statue on other grounds in a future case," Bondurant said in an email.

A federal lawsuit challenging Georgia’s system of removing inactive voters from the registration rolls was formally withdrawn on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ohio’s similar voter “purge” policy did not violate federal law. …

Because Georgia’s and Ohio’s policies are so similar, the Supreme Court’s decision in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute “essentially disposes, unfavorably, of our NVRA claim,” said Emmet Bondurant, lead attorney for Common Cause Georgia, which had challenged the state’s voter roll maintenance efforts along with the Georgia NAACP.

Bondurant withdrew the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta. The filing preserves the right of Common Cause and the NAACP to “challenge the validity of the Georgia purge statue on other grounds in a future case,” Bondurant said in an email.

He said the high court’s decision could leave several hundred thousand Georgia residents unable to vote in November, Bondurant said.

“After the 2016 election, they purged roughly 400,000 who therefore will not be eligible to vote in 2018 unless they have re-registered, which very few people do,” Bondurant said. …

Common Cause and the NAACP filed their lawsuit in 2016, claiming Georgia’s policy violated the National Voter Registration Act by unlawfully removing voters simply for not voting. Kemp had maintained that the lawsuit was without merit.

In a December 2015 letter to Common Cause attorneys, state lawyers representing Kemp stressed that voters aren’t being removed for not voting. Rather, “a voter is removed because they have not had any contact with election officials in Georgia for a minimum of seven years, and they have not returned a postage prepaid, pre-addressed return card to confirm their residence,” the attorneys wrote.