More than 42,500 voter registration applications, the vast majority of which were for minorities, have been either suspended or rejected in the state of Georgia since July 2013 due to a strict law requiring names to be identical to a state database for driver’s licenses or Social Security, according to a lawsuit filed last week. Typos or slight variations in names, including misplaced hyphens or accent marks, are reasons to throw out a voter application in the state.
The policy violates the Voting Rights Act by “impos[ing] a substantial, unwarranted, and disproportionate burden on” minority applicants, according to the lawsuit.
The “notoriously unreliable” way of verifying information has had a disproportionate effect on minorities, the lawsuit states:
