Lawsuit: Georgia Illegally Purges Votes

(CBS)  CBS News Investigative Producer Michael Rey wrote this story for CBSNews.com.

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A lawsuit was filed late Thursday against Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel claiming her office is breaking at least two federal laws by illegally purging voters from registration rolls based on challenges to citizenship.

The complaint, filed by several civil rights groups on behalf of a single plaintiff, claims the state is violating the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act by purging possibly thousands of voters less than 90 days before the election and relying on a flawed database to question the citizenship of registered voters.

"It appears as though Georgia is going out of its way to look to purge voters. They are going beyond what's allowed for by federal law," Jon Greenbaum, an attorney with the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights told CBS News. "In our view it is a clear violation of federal law."

The lead plaintiff in the suit is 29-year-old Jose Morales, a recently naturalized US citizen living in Cherokee County, GA. Morales, who studies international relations at Kennesaw University, has been a citizen since 2006. After registering to vote at school in September he received this letter in the mail telling him, "you may not be a US citizen." That began a trip through a confusing county bureaucracy that continued to insist he was not a citizen. "I began to be upset about the letter and the fact that I was being asked to prove my citizenship even though I am already a citizen," Morales said in an affidavit.

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Read The Complaint Civil Rights Groups Filed
Read The Letter From Cherokee County Election Officials
Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel Responds to Activist Lawsuit

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In March 2007 Georgia officials launched a statewide database that required voter registrations to be matched with the database at the motor vehicles department to check citizenship. Georgia is considered a section 5 state under the Voting Rights Act. Because of a history of discouraging minorities from voting, the state is required to check with the Department of Justice before it started using the database. But it never did.

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice sent a letter to the state Attorney General raising questions about the legality of the 2 million queries the state has made about resident social security numbers and citizenship in the past year.

Greenbaum said actions by the state could affect the voter registrations of "thousands" of residents in all 159 counties of the state. "The benefit of purging voters is if you can control who is registered to vote you can control who votes. That's one of the things we're trying to find out through the lawsuit is…who is responsible."

The Secretary of State's office told CBS News they would not be making a statement Thursday.
By Michael Rey

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[joezap5]

Acorn was the victim of their own stupid quota system. They paid the inner city poor by the hour and &quot;suggested&quot; (quota) that about 14 new registrants per day would be acceptable.

If you''''ve ever registered voters in districts that are being combed by many political organizations at once, during a hectic political season, you see that the region quickly becomes saturated. They should''''ve known that once their cash paid, low income, workers were striking out they would resort to fudging the forms.

The fact that the Acorn employees registered fictitious names like Zooopy Zooopster And John Q. Public, in no way comes close to voter fraud! The Irony is that Acorn, in a way, is the one who was defrauded. But, by being that stupid, they deserve it.

The worst part of the Acorn affair is that the disgusting, Anti-American, Voter suppressing, Civil Rights destroying GOP is able to lie and use this to their advantage.

After Kathleen Harris &amp; Co. purged tens of thousands of legitimately registered voters in Florida In 2000 (An election Gore &quot;lost&quot; by less than 270 votes), the GOP will try to claim that this is the reason McCain is going to loose in a landslide election. Sick Irony...

[vincan-2009]

Voting rights are guaranteed by the government. We want all who can legally vote to vote. Republicans don''t think that way. They are shaking in their boots because the best man for the job is winning. So republicans have to get busy to make sure in doesn''t happen. That is what I am sick and tired of. Republicans should be looking at themselves. What has happened to you? You are so hateful and corrupt.

[billc742]

This has to be resolved before the election. If there are illegal acts by ACORN, then they should be punished. Also if there is illegal activity by the state election boards, they should be punished as well.

[hopeful08]

Obama did a couple of hours of training for ACORN
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/us/politics/11acorn.html?ref=us

but I wish he would have done much more. This organization has 400,000 volanteers that work to register voters. It would be good for them to get the best voter participation training from the master - Obama who ran ProjectVote in 1992 rather than having a few hundred over-eager volanteers get in trouble for putting their quotas ahead of a solid application. Even so, ACORN usually wins the vast majority of legal challenges.

Conservatives orgs hate orgs like ACORN because the voter participation drives are mostly in poor or minority communities that tend to vote Democratic.

[clovisbuford]

Why is the MSM not reporting on the criminal fiasco with ACORN? That would be the same ACORN that is a huge Obama supporter. It''''s all about voter fraud but bodes poorly for the Dems.
I guess I answered my own question.
Posted by middleclass3 at 12:02 PM : Oct 10, 2008
A couple of things ACORN pays individual contractors to collect voter registrations , they get paid by the card in some cases , Does this mean a lot of bogus voter registration cards get turned in , in some cases yes it does . These individual contractors take their money and run for bogus cards . Now having shown that show me a correlation in bogus voters showing up .. show me one good case of significant voter fraud in the last 4 elections .. just one .. untiol then its registration fraud , not voter fraud . and about contractors taking advantage of ACORN .. I await your verifiable account of voter fraud , ie : phantom voters etc in an election, and no I won''t hold my breath

[middleclass3]

Why is the MSM not reporting on the criminal fiasco with ACORN? That would be the same ACORN that is a huge Obama supporter. It''s all about voter fraud but bodes poorly for the Dems.

I guess I answered my own question.

[homespunlady]

Posted by middleclass3 at 11:48 AM : Oct 10, 2008

Do YOU LIVE IN A CAVE??? The ACORN BS is ALL OVER the MSM!

Now HERE&quot;S MY QUESTION.

WHY isn''t the MSM talking about ILLEGAL VOTER SUPPRESSION!

Culling people''s names form the VOTER LISTS LESS than 90 days out based on ILLEGALLY USED lists, keying in on potential minority names, &quot;mis-keying&quot; over 600,000 names so they get dropped in Nevada, using Social Security lists that WERE NOT meant for that purpose, running the ELECTION RESULTS through REPUBLICAN (PARTISAN) DATABASES BEFORE RELEASE, BROKEN SEALS on voter counts, MISSING DATA TAPES on vote counts, using PARTISAN OWNED voting machines that are EASILY HACKED, BELOW cost machines that are &quot;offered&quot; to selected districts, etc.

ALL OF WHICH ARE ILLEGAL and WILL REALLY SKEW VOTES!

Sorry folks I would REALLY be surprised if it doesn''t turn out after the election that some &quot;young Republicans&quot; aren''t &quot;discovered&quot; to have &quot;volunteered&quot; at ACORN simply to CREATE and then PUBLICIZE these OBVIOUSLY FALSE registrations to SUPPRESS that organization.

It happened in OHIO after the 2004 election!

LET''S ACTUALLY FIND AND PROSECUTE the INDIVIDUAL FALSIFIERS!!

That would be REAL reporting!

[amrt5016]

There is not ONE CREDIBLE shred of evidence that Obama EVER had anything to do with ACORN!!!!
Posted by hungry1968-2 at 11:36 AM : Oct 10, 2008

That''s my take too. There is no reputable news reporting service or outlet that has put their name on the story. None.

[middleclass3]

Why is the MSM not reporting on the criminal fiasco with ACORN? That would be the same ACORN that is a huge Obama supporter. It''s all about voter fraud but bodes poorly for the Dems.

I guess I answered my own question.