This week Secure Families Initiative filed a lawsuit challenging Georgia S.B. 189, a new Georgia law that will make it more difficult for counties to dismiss unsubstantiated challenges to an American’s voter registration or their eligibility to vote. Secure Families Initiative v. Raffensberger, filed by Campaign Legal Center (CLC) on our behalf, argues that S.B. 189 violates federal law and infringes on military and overseas voters’ fundamental freedom to vote.
Many states, including Georgia, allow a registered voter to challenge a fellow American’s voter registration or eligibility to vote. In recent years, these laws have been abused by bad actors who bring hundreds of thousands of unproven challenges.
“We are gravely concerned by the disenfranchisement that these disruptive new election rules will disproportionately have on Georgia’s military voters, who rely on mailing paper ballots from wherever our nation’s security sends them,” said Sarah Streyder, Executive Director of Secure Families Initiative. “Georgia contributes the 3rd-most recruits to our nation’s military of any state, 22 percent of whom identify as Black, and every person serving their nation deserves the right to vote and to have that vote certified.”
“Brave service members, their families and other Americans abroad should have the same opportunity to vote as any other American. Our democracy works best when every voter can participate, but S.B. 189 and frivolous mass challenges run contrary to that goal,” said CLC’s Senior Vice President Paul Smith. “CLC is fighting to ensure that all Americans, including those overseas and abroad, exercise their fundamental right to vote in this upcoming election.”
About Georgia S.B. 189
A new Georgia law, S.B. 189, threatens to prevent Americans living and serving overseas from making their voice heard this November. This law puts voters who have temporarily moved or are temporarily without permanent residential addresses — such as military members deployed overseas — at risk of being wrongly challenged.
Military and overseas voters already face more barriers than the average American in exercising our freedom to vote. We have to request an absentee ballot because we can’t vote in-person, we don’t have the benefit of drop boxes, and living abroad could also mean mail times are less reliable.
Mass challenge laws have long been used in this country to target recently naturalized citizens, voters of color, student voters and voters with disabilities. S.B. 189 is now targeting the brave people who serve our country.
Read Secure Families Initiative v. Raffensberger
SFI Joined Additional Legal Action in Georgia
In addition to the lawsuit about S.B. 189, CLC filed “friend of the court” briefs on behalf of SFI in four lawsuits challenging new Georgia State Election Board rules that threaten to disenfranchise voters, specifically military and overseas voters. Learn more: Military and Overseas Voters Push Back Against Georgia Election Board Rules.