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CASE STUDIES IN EMERGENCY ELECTION LITIGATION
Mismatches Between Voter Registration Data
and Other Government Data
Georgia Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda v. Kemp
(Eleanor L. Ross, N.D. Ga. 1:18-cv-4727)
A federal complaint challenged a statute that required the name on
a voter registration form to exactly match-character and space and
hyphen for character and space and hyphen-how the name ap-
pears in other government records. The complaint also challenged
the flagging of voter registration applications as potentially from
noncitizens just because the applicants had not yet become citizens
when they received their driver's licenses. One week after a motion
for a preliminary injunction was filed and 11 days before a general
election, the judge specified how voters could prove their citizen-
ship and vote if their voter registrations had not become final be-
cause of citizenship questions.
Subject: Registration procedures. Topics: Registration
procedures; citizenship; signature matching; laches; provisional
ballots.
An October 11, 2018, federal complaint filed by six organizations in the
Northern District of Georgia against Georgia's secretary of state challenged
an exact match protocol for approving voter registrations, according to
which registrations are set aside as pending if the name on the voter registra-
tion form does not exactly match, character for character, the name on driv-
er's license or social security records.' The complaint alleged that the proto-
col disproportionately affected African-American, Latino, and Asian-
American applicants.2 The complaint also alleged that citizenship status was
falsely questioned for voter applicants who became citizens after they re-
ceived driver's licenses as non-citizens.
The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint eight days later, which added
two organizations as plaintiffs.' With the amended complaint, the plaintiffs
filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction protecting new voter
1. Complaint, Ga. Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda v. Kemp, No. 1:18-cv-4727 (N.D.
Ga. Oct. 11, 2018), D.E. 1 [hereinafter Ga. Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda Complaint]; see
Mark Niesse, Lawsuit Challenges Ga.'s Exact Match Law, Atlanta J.-Const., Oct. 12, 2018,
at 1A.
2. Ga. Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda Complaint, supra note 1, at 2.
3. Id. at 3.
[I]f a person receives a Georgia driver's license based on lawful status in the United
States but is not yet a citizen, the [Department of Driver Services] files will reflect that the
person is not a citizen. Ga. Coalition for the People's Agenda v. Kemp, _ F. Supp. 3d _,
, 2018 WL 5729058 (N.D. Ga. 2018) (p.3 of opinion filed at N.D. Ga. No. 1:18-cv-4727,
D.E. 33).
4. Amended Complaint, Ga. Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda, No. 1:18-cv-4727 (N.D.
Ga. Oct. 19, 2018), D.E. 15; Ga. Coalition for the People's Agenda, _ F. Supp. 3d at _,
2018 WL 5729058 (p.2 of opinion filed at N.D. Ga. No. 1:18-cv-4727, D.E. 33).
Federal Judicial Center 12/11/2018
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