Today, a coalition of civil rights organizations filed an emergency motion in Georgia federal district court to make sure that persons inaccurately flagged as non-citizens under Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s flawed “exact match” system can vote. Kemp’s “exact match” voter registration process relies on outdated citizenship data which identifies naturalized citizens as non-citizens, forcing them to track down a deputy registrar before they can vote, even if they already produced proof of citizenship when they registered to vote originally.
However, there is not a guaranteed deputy registrar at every polling location. Therefore, naturalized citizens may be required to travel to the county seat to resolve an error in their registration that they did not cause. Moreover, recently naturalized citizens have been told that they cannot fax or mail their proof of citizenship, they must present it in-person. For voters temporarily out of the state, this is an absolute bar to voting.