Asian Americans Advancing Justice–Atlanta v. Raffensperger
Advancing Justice-Atlanta and several Asian American voters are challenging new and discriminatory state law restrictions on absentee-by-mail voting after AAPI voters relied heavily on voting by mail in 2020 and 2021.
Status: Ongoing • Issues: Federal Voting Rights Act, Intentional Discrimination, Undue Burden on the Right to Vote, First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment, Voting by Mail
Advancing Justice-Atlanta and several Asian American voters are challenging Senate Bill 202 ("SB 202"), which the Georgia legislature passed in March 2021. SB 202 significantly restricts absentee voting by mail, the method of voting used by AAPI voters at higher rates than any other racial group in Georgia. Specifically, SB 202 dramatically reduces the time to request and return absentee ballots, eliminates absentee ballot drop-off locations, prohibits local and state officials from proactively mailing absentee applications, imposes burdensome new voter identification requirements, and criminalizes certain handling and return of completed absentee ballot applications.
Advancing Justice-Atlanta's lawsuit argues that SB 202's restrictions on absentee voting disproportionately harm and intentionally disriminate against AAPI voters in Georgia in violation of both the federal Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.
Filed
April 2021
Status
Ongoing
Issues
Federal Voting Rights Act, Intentional Discrimination, Undue Burden on the Right to Vote, First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment, Voting by Mail
GALEO v. Gwinnett County Board of Elections
Advancing Justice-Atlanta and several other local voting rights organizations are challenging Gwinnett County’s and the Secretary of State’s persistent failures to provide all election materials to Gwinnett County voters bilingually in English and Spanish.
Status: Decided • Issues: Language Access, Voting Rights Act
Advancing Justice-Atlanta and several other local voting rights organizations are challenging Gwinnett County’s and the Secretary of State’s persistent failures to provide all election materials to Gwinnett County voters bilingually in English and Spanish.
Filed
April 2020
Status
Decided
Issues
Language Access, Voting Rights Act
Kwon v. Crittenden
To protect LEP voters in the state-only December 4, 2018 run-off election, Advancing Justice-Atlanta filed a lawsuit in late November 2018 to challenge the law.
Status: Decided • Issues: Language Access, Voting Rights Act
During the November 6, 2018 general election, Advancing Justice-Atlanta recruited and trained volunteer interpreters to assist Limited English Proficient (LEP) voters at the polls.
Some of these LEP voters faced issues at the polls because of a Georgia state law that severely restricted who could be an interpreter in state and local elections. While this law should not have applied in the November general election, which included federal races, the law would have applied to the December runoff election, which included only state races. To protect LEP voters’ right to an interpreter in the state-only runoff election, Advancing Justice-Atlanta filed a lawsuit in late November to challenge the restrictive state law. The lawsuit alleged that the state law violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
Within a matter of days, the lawsuit resulted in a settlement that permanently enjoined enforcement of the restrictive state law, thus entitling LEP voters to an interpreter of their choice in the December runoff election. This broad access to an interpreter now applies to all elections in Georgia.
Filed
November 27, 2018
Status
Decided
Issues
Voting Rights, Language Access, Voting Rights Act
News & Press Releases
Georgia Muslim Voter Project v. Kemp
In October 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia (ACLU of Georgia) filed a lawsuit on behalf of Georgia Muslim Voter Project and Advancing Justice-Atlanta, to protect Georgia voters who had their absentee ballots or absentee ballot applications rejected due to an alleged “signature mismatch.”
Status: Decided • Issues: Absentee Ballot, Constitutional Due Process
In October 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia (ACLU of Georgia) filed a lawsuit on behalf of Georgia Muslim Voter Project and Advancing Justice-Atlanta to protect Georgia voters who had their absentee ballots or absentee ballot applications rejected due to an alleged “signature mismatch.”
Under Georgia law, county elections officials are required to reject absentee ballots with signatures that do not appear to match the signature the county has on file. The voter was not provided notice before their ballot was rejected or an opportunity to fix the problem.
The lawsuit claimed that rejecting absentee ballots without giving voters an opportunity to fix signature issues is unconstitutional. The lawsuit resulted in a preliminary injunction that ordered election officials to give voters an opportunity to fix a signature mismatch issue before rejecting their absentee ballots in the November 6, 2018 general election.
Filed
October 16, 2018
Status
Decided
Issues
Voting Rights, Absentee Ballot, Signature Mismatch, Procedural Due Process
Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda v. Kemp
In October 2018, Advancing Justice-Atlanta and other civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit to challenge the new “exact match” law.
Status: Ongoing • Issues: Exact Match, Voting Rights Act, Constitutional Due Process
In 2017, former Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law House Bill 268, which codified the same faulty “exact match” voter registration verification process previously challenged and temporarily ended in a 2016 lawsuit. Instead of 40 days, House Bill 268 gives applicants 26 months to fix any alleged mismatch before their voter registration is canceled. But the law still puts thousands of eligible voters at risk of disenfranchisement, the vast majority of them people of color.
In October 2018, Advancing Justice-Atlanta and other civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit to challenge the new “exact match” law, which led to increased protections to voters for the November 6, 2018 general election and the December 4, 2018 run-off election in Georgia.
Filed
October 11, 2018
Status
Ongoing
Issues
Voting Rights, Voting Registration, Exact Match, Voting Rights Act, Help America Vote Act
Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. State of Georgia
In 2017, Advancing Justice-Atlanta joined several other civil rights organizations to challenge a Georgia statutory scheme that requires Georgians to register to vote three months in advance of a federal runoff election in order to cast a ballot.
Status: Decided • Issues: Federal Runoff
In 2017, Advancing Justice-Atlanta joined several other civil rights organizations to challenge a Georgia statute that required Georgians to register to vote three months in advance of a federal runoff election in order to cast a ballot, in violation of the National Voter Registration Act.
As a result of this litigation, a federal judge extended the voter registration deadline for the June 2017 runoff election between Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, enabling 8,000 additional voters to participate in this historic election.
Filed
April 25, 2017
Status
Decided
Issues
Voting Rights, Federal Runoff, National Voter Registration Act
Georgia State Conference of the NAACP v. Kemp
In 2016, Advancing Justice-Atlanta and several other civil rights organizations sued the Georgia Secretary of State over Georgia’s voter registration verification process.
Status: Decided • Issues: Exact Match, Constitutional Due Process, Voting Rights Act
In 2016, Advancing Justice-Atlanta and several other civil rights organizations sued the Georgia Secretary of State over Georgia’s “exact match” voter registration verification process. The “exact match” process automatically rejected voter registration applications if an applicant’s information did not exactly match information in other state databases and the applicant failed to correct the mismatch within 40 days. This process led to thousands of eligible voters being denied the right to vote even when their voter registration applicants contained no errors. The majority of impacted applicants were people of color. The lawsuit led to a settlement that allowed thousands of previously disqualified voters to vote in the 2016 presidential election and reformed the voter registration verification process.
Filed
September 13, 2016
Status
Decided
Issues
Voting Rights, Exact Match, Voting Rights Act, Help America Vote Act
Legal Filing