State responds to voter ID challenge

The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday received Georgia’s response to a challenge of the state’s system of verifying voters’ identities and citizenship.

The department last week told Georgia officials that it believed the state had made substantial changes to its voting process that had to be precleared by the Department of Justice under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Those changes also led voting rights advocates to sue Georgia in federal court. An order in that case is expected this week.

The Justice Department has 60 days to review Georgia’s submission, but with less than three weeks to go before the Nov. 4 election, officials in Washington said it would grant the request to expedite the review.

“We will do our best to complete our review and make a determination as quickly as possible,” said Scot Montrey of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

Spokesmen for Attorney General Thurbert Baker responded for Georgia.

“The state was acting under the good-faith belief that the processes in question were either mandated by Congress … or that the state-related actions were authorized under the Georgia Election Code,” Baker wrote as part of a 15-page memo.

The state has been cross-checking voters’ registration information against data in the state Department of Driver Services database and, in some cases, against the U.S. Social Security Administration database. Voters whose information does not match exactly have been flagged as having conflicts. Some, at least 2,600, have received letters from their county registrars questioning whether they are U.S. citizens.

Voting rights groups, including the ACLU, sued last week, claiming in part that the state’s methods amount to intimidation and illegal purging of voters from the rolls. The state argued it was following federal guidelines and ensuring that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote.