A third federal lawsuit challenging Georgia’s new election law has been filed on behalf of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and others, arguing the overhaul makes it harder for Black voters to cast their ballots.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, takes aim at a number of sections in the law, including absentee identification requirements, drop box restrictions, absentee ballot request deadlines, and a ban on volunteers handing out food and water to voters waiting in line, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“Simply put, this new law not only seeks to suppress the votes of Black and brown people, but it is also racist and seeks to return us to the days of Jim Crow,” Bishop Reginald Jackson of the AME Church’s sixth district, which includes Georgia, wrote to parishioners, the news outlet reported.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have defended the Election Integrity Act of 2021, saying it’ll increase confidence in Georgia’s voting system in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s repeated unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
Election officials have insisted there’s no evidence of widespread fraud in Georgia and that recounts verified the November 2020 election results, the news outlet noted.
According to the new lawsuit, the voting law will harm historically disenfranchised communities.
“For some Georgians, this inconvenience may be manageable. But for voters of color and other historically disenfranchised communities — who already suffer through disproportionately longer lines than white voters — it could be dramatic,” the 91-page lawsuit states, the Atlanta Journal-Constitutiion reported. “This burden is not an accident. Nor is it legal.”
Two other lawsuits sought court intervention to block the law that Kemp signed last Thursday.
A suit from a coalition of advocacy groups, including the NAACP of Georgia, argued the law is an effort to suppress Black voters in the wake of Democrats’ victories in presidential and Senate elections in the state, the Journal-Constitution reported.
The other, brought by The New Georgia Project and other voting rights groups, alleges the law burdens voters based on unsubstantiated claims questioning the legitimacy of Georgia’s elections, the news outlet reported.
According to CNN, the latest suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Southern Poverty Law Center, and law firms WilmerHale, and Davis Wright Tremaine on behalf of the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Georgia Muslim Voter Project, Women Watch Afrika, Latino Community Fund Georgia, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
CNN reported that voting overhaul bills have been moved in at least 45 states, and that at least 253 bills have provisions that would restrict voting access.
Source: Newmax
