Handel loses voter challenge

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel got her hand slapped a few hours ago by a three-judge court that decided her efforts to challenge the citizenship of registered voters violated the 1964 Voting Rights Act.

Specifically, the federal judges decided that Handel’s office should have gotten approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before submitting voters names to be checked against the Social Security Administration database. Because she didn’t do so, those voters whose citizenship has been questioned – about 4,500 people – will be allowed to cast a paper ballot on Nov. 4. The court further ordered Handel’s office to notify these “flagged” voters of their right to vote on Election Day.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and other groups on behalf of a Cherokee County man whose voting eligibility had been challenged by Handel’s office even though he became a U.S. citizen last fall.

Handel has argued that her office is compelled by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to check registered voters against the state’s driver license database and Social Security information. Voter advocates counter that HAVA was explicitly intended by Congress to boost voter participation, not to provide states with a new tool for purging voters from the rolls. The problem with large-scale database checks, they say, is that misspellings, data-entry errors and outdated information lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of eligible voters being improperly flagged.

The problem came to light recently when the Social Security Administration questioned why Handel had requested database checks on nearly two million voters. After an internal investigation, Handel’s office said that many of the requests were accidentally duplicated; it had only intended to check about 750,000 voters – still more than any other state than Alabama.

Also, considering that 550,000 Georgians have registered to vote in 2008, the requested database checks must also include a sizable number of existing voters – not a group one would imagine to include suspected non-citizens.

It’s unknown whether Handel will – or even can – appeal the court’s decision. But she’s fought tooth and nail against ballot access and voter inclusiveness thus far, so we recommend keeping your seat belt buckled.