Voter checks reveal little, county elections chiefs say

ATLANTA --- A federal judge on Friday declined to issue a restraining order to keep Georgia elections officials from checking voters' identities and citizenship, though the Department of Justice has already warned that the results of the checks might not be legally enforceable.

Even so, some county elections officials say they have yet to deny registration to anyone the state has flagged as having questionable identity or citizenship.

Of the 110 names the Secretary of State's Office provided the Richmond County Elections Board on Sept. 24, not one has turned out to be ineligible to vote, said Executive Director Lynn Bailey.

Her office has resolved problems with 60 to 70 percent of the voters as of Friday. In many instances, the individual used an out-of-state driver's license on the voter registration application, which raised a red flag when the number was checked against Georgia driver's license records, Mrs. Bailey said.

Individuals in other cases became naturalized citizens after they applied for a license, and indicated on the license application that they were not citizens at the time, Mrs. Bailey said.

Voting rights groups took Secretary of State Karen Handel to federal court Friday to keep the state from checking identities and citizenship of voter registration applicants. The judge did not immediately rule on the case, and declined to issue a restraining order.

Ms. Handel blasted the lawsuit as "an orchestrated and well-organized effort to dismantle our state's identification laws and verification process."

On Monday, the Social Security Administration questioned why Georgia had requested 2 million checks of Social Security numbers -- more than any other state -- when under federal voting law, the state was to check only newly registered voters.

Georgia has about 406,000 newly registered voters as of Oct. 1. Matt Carrothers, Ms. Handel's spokesman, said the state disputes the 2 million figure and is trying to learn how the Social Security Administration reached that number.

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice wrote the state Attorney General's Office to warn that providing county officials with the lists, along with other actions, appear to be changes substantial enough to require federal approval under the Voting Rights Act.

Georgia, and other states with a history of denying minorities the right to vote, must gain federal approval before changing elections procedures. Without the approval, any changes would be legally unenforceable, Department of Justice officials said.

Mrs. Bailey said her office will proceed until told to do otherwise.

"In the meantime, we'll keep pushing through and doing this, keeping our voter list as clean as we possibly can," Mrs. Bailey said.

Jake Armstrong can be reached at (404) 589-8424 or jake.armstrong@morris.com.