JUDGE SETS ASIDE "EXACT MATCH" IN GEORGIA!!!!

[Fiendish Thingy]

Sorry no link - Democracy Now is reporting a federal judge has ruled the "Exact Match" voter screening system put an "undue burden" on voters, and shall not apply for Tuesday's election!

Woo Hoo!!!

[BumRushDaShow]

1. Here is a link from earlier today

Judge eases requirements under Georgia 'exact match' rule

By Chris Mills Rodrigo - 11/02/18 02:12 PM EDT


A federal judge issued a ruling Friday removing barriers to voters flagged as non-citizens by Georgia's "exact match" rules, easing their ability to vote in next week's midterm election.

It's a victory for Democrats, who had worried the rule could keep some of their voters away from the polls during Tuesday's midterm elections. Democrats had been particularly worried the rule could hurt absentee and early voters from their party. They cast the decision as a win for Democrats and a defeat for the Georgia secretary of state, Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican candidate for governor.

“Another day, another major defeat for Brian Kemp’s voter suppression efforts," Rebecca DeHart, executive director for the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a statement. Voting rights has become a major issue in Kemp's race against Democrat Stacy Abrams, who would be the nation's first African-American woman elected governor if she wins. The two are locked in a tight race.

Kemp's office largely shrugged off the decision. In a statement, Candice L. Broce, press secretary and staff attorney at the office, called it "a minor change to the current system."

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/414579-georgia-judge-rules-against-kemp-in-exact-match-voting-case

[Fiendish Thingy]

2. Thanks- no other news site has this on its front page...? Nt

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Other sites have story links about it on their front pages going to full stories

These are just a few I scanned for and found including CNN -

15 hr 37 min ago
A judge rules that thousands of Georgia residents must be allowed to vote

From CNN’s Matthew Hilk and Kaylee Hartung
Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

In a defeat for Georgia Secretary of State and Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, a federal judge ruled Friday that 3,141 recently naturalized US citizens whose voter registrations were placed on hold must be allowed to vote Tuesday.

The naturalized citizens’ voter applications were originally held up by Georgia’s “exact match,” apparently because their new citizenship status was not yet updated in Georgia’s driver database. Voting rights activists say many of them are minority voters.

Kristen Clark, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which brought the lawsuit, said, “This eliminates the unfair burdens that those voters would have faced on Election Day."
"These voters could have lost the right to vote. They never should have been burdened like this in the first place," she added.

She explained that people who recently became citizens were particularly burdened by the state’s "exact match" policy, because those in pending status would have had to find deputy registrars on Election Day and provide proof of citizenship to vote.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/midterms-2018-countdown/h_5a9c871a6d5fdce0bbf07495a6e0f250

Huffington Post -

POLITICS 11/02/2018 03:04 pm ET Updated 13 hours ago
Judge Orders Georgia’s Brian Kemp To Give Thousands More People A Shot At Voting
The state has to take additional steps to make sure eligible citizens aren’t disenfranchised, a judge ordered.

By Sam Levine

A federal judge in Georgia on Friday ordered state Secretary of State Brian Kemp to establish additional procedures to guarantee that voters flagged by the state as potential noncitizens can vote in the 2018 election if they can prove their citizenship.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross is a win for voting rights groups who are suing the state over its so-called “exact match” system for registering new voters. The ruling is expected to affect 3,141 people who registered but whose registrations were considered pending because the state couldn’t verify their citizenship. Overall, there are about 53,000 people whose voter registrations are pending because of a system that critics say is inaccurate and discriminatory.

“From the perspective of these voters, every one of these 3,000 individual voters has an individual and constitutional right to vote,” said Danielle Lang, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center representing the plaintiffs in the suit. “Elections in the United States are regularly decided by smaller margins than that and every vote counts.”

The ruling orders Kemp to allow people to vote if they present proof of citizenship to the county registrar before voting, or to a poll manager or deputy registrar at the polls. If someone shows up at the polls without proof of citizenship, election officials have to either let them return with proof or let them cast a provisional ballot. If someone casts a provisional ballot, they have until Friday after the election to verify their citizenship.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/georgia-brian-kemp-voters_us_5bdc92cee4b09d43e31ecee7

MSNBC is linking to Rachel's broadcast about it.

CBS News -

CBS/AP November 2, 2018, 5:46 PM
Federal judge rules Georgia must ease procedure for voters proving citizenship

Georgia must make it easier for voters flagged as potential noncitizens to prove their U.S. citizenship at the polls, a federal judge ruled Friday in an injunction ordering the state to change its procedure just four days before Election Day.

A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Chris Carr did not immediately say whether the state would appeal. Spokeswoman Katie Byrd said state attorneys were reviewing the order.

The injunction by U.S. District Court Judge Eleanor L. Ross addresses a specific issue that arose from a broader lawsuit by civil rights groups who in October filed a broader challenge to Georgia's "exact match" verification process. The state requires identification information on voter registration applications to precisely match information already on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration.

Some mismatches are triggered by variations in a name, like a dropped hyphen, or because of data entry errors. Other people are flagged as potential noncitizens, often because the state driver's license database hasn't been updated to reflect their naturalization. Roughly 51,100 Georgians have been flagged as ineligible to vote because of such registration problems.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal-judge-rules-that-georgia-must-ease-procedure-for-voters-proving-citizenship/

In general, the news sites are chock full of dozens of links, with some that might have a photo and/or video to highlight a particular story, so sometimes you have to dig through those front pages just like you might do with a physical newspaper (that has an "above the fold" and a "below the fold" focus).

However if anything, something that happens in Georgia is probably somewhat irrelevant to someone living in say Oregon. This is a big country.

[Me.]

3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[ecstatic]

4. Great! What the hell is wrong with the judges in North Dakota and

Dodge City with their bullshit rulings?

[Ligyron]

5. They are afraid the "peasants" might vote.

Hell, a Democrat might win and we can't have that.

[TomSlick]

6. In the immortal words of Horace Rumpole:

"A Solomon come to judgement." (As I happily enjoy my Chateau Thames Embankment.&quot

[Gothmog]

7. Kemp had to issue press release on ruling

Link to tweet