A group of civil rights advocates filed a lawsuit Tuesday targeting provisions of a new Georgia law that empowers people to challenge the eligibility of thousands of voters.
Under a law that took effect July 1, voter challenges must be upheld if a Georgia voter registers in another state, claims a homestead exemption in a different jurisdiction or registers at a nonresidential address. Another provision, which takes effect Jan. 1, requires people who are “homeless and without a permanent address” to use the county registrar’s office as their mailing address.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, says federal and state laws do not require people to have a “residential” address to be eligible to vote. It says the new law could expose college students living in dormitories, seniors in nursing homes and others living in locations deemed “nonresidential” under local zoning laws to meritless voter challenges.
The lawsuit also says the law creates unnecessary barriers to thousands of homeless people who are eligible to vote — forcing them to travel to a county office instead of receiving election mail at their preferred address.
The lawsuit was filed by the Georgia Conference of the NAACP and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, with assistance from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. It seeks to prevent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from enforcing the challenged provisions.
A spokesman for Raffensperger said he could not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit is the latest salvo in an escalating battle over voter challenges in Georgia and across the country. Fueled by suspicions of widespread voting fraud and aided by new laws, conservative activists have challenged the eligibility of more than 100,000 Georgia voters since 2021.
County election boards have rejected most of those challenges, saying they were based on insufficient evidence. Investigations have found only a handful of ballots cast by ineligible voters in Georgia elections in recent years.
Supporters of Senate Bill 189, the law in question, say mass challenges to voters’ eligibility prevent fraud by ensuring only eligible voters cast ballots. Some say counties aren’t doing enough to police voting rolls.
Critics say the law forces legitimate voters to defend their eligibility in hearings and sometimes disenfranchises them.
A separate lawsuit filed last month also opposes Georgia’s voter challenge law, alleging it violates voter protections in federal law that set standards for canceling registrations.
