Fair Fight Action likely to appeal voting rights decision

ATLANTA — Lawyers for a voting rights group founded by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams say they will likely appeal last week’s federal court ruling upholding Georgia’s election laws.

Fair Fight Action challenged a long list of Georgia election policies as unconstitutional in the lawsuit filed after the 2018 general elections.

The lawsuit said Georgia’s requirement that voter records exactly match driver’s license records was too aggressive and prevented thousands of Georgians from being able to register to vote properly. And state processes caused problems when verifying that potential voters were citizens and not former felons.

Those problems, and others, disproportionately impacted voters of color, making it more difficult for them to vote, lawyers for Fair Fight argued.

But U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled last Friday that Fair Fight had not sufficiently proved a disparate impact on voters of color in the lawsuit, which he said was the longest-running voting rights case in the history of the court.

“Obviously, this decision was not the decision we were hoping for,” Fair Fight’s lead lawyer, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, said during a press conference held in response to the ruling. “A federal court has found that there are severe burdens on voters and constitutional violations in our election system. Yet the court has only issued recommendations instead of mandated relief.

“It’s baffling that Secretary [of State Brad] Raffensperger or Gov. [Brian] Kemp could read this court’s findings … and celebrate them because this court has found severe burdens on voters of color in Georgia.”

Despite the legal defeat, Lawrence-Hardy said the lawsuit had achieved some important successes and raised awareness about problems with Georgia’s system.

The lawsuit led Georgia to make changes to ensure some voters were not purged from voter rolls, to update election-worker training materials, and to change the law on absentee ballot cancellations to make it easier for people to vote.

“Because of this suit, the election system in Georgia has changed,” Lawrence-Hardy said.

State Republican leaders called the decision a victory, saying it vindicates their approach to Georgia elections.

“This is a win for all Georgia election officials who dedicated their lives to safe, secure and accessible elections,” Raffensperger, who is running for re-election in November, said. “Stolen election and voter suppression claims by Stacey Abrams were nothing but poll-tested rhetoric not supported by facts and evidence.

“In Georgia, it is easy to vote and hard to cheat — and I’m going to continue to work to keep it that way,” said Kemp, who served as secretary of state until defeating Abrams in the governor’s race in 2018.

Abrams is running against Kemp for governor again this fall.