Georgia counties ordered to restore 4,000 purged voters to rolls before Senate runoff elections

In another court loss for Republicans looking to sabotage our elections, a federal judge in Georgia has ruled that two Georgia counties broke the law when they removed over 4,000 voters from the voting rolls in the weeks between the November elections and the upcoming Georgia Senate runoffs. This one isn't exactly surprising: Georgia's Muscogee and Ben Hill counties purged voters based only on suspected matches between U.S. Postal Service change of address forms and county-registered voters, with no other evidence or attempts to contact those voters.

And as the judge pointed out, the whole thing violated federal law to begin with because it violates the federal ban against voter purges within 90 days of a federal election.

So, as reported by Politico, the judge has now ordered those 4,000 voters to be put back on the rolls for next week's election.

Despite the seemingly blazingly obvious illegality of two county board of elections ignoring federal restrictions to purge voters even as early voting is taking place based on the complaints of two cranks who took it upon themselves to go through public records and try their own hand at "matching" records, this probably won't be the end of things. Muscogee County in particular appears to be extremely peeved that the judge assigned to the case didn't recuse herself: that judge is Leslie Abrams Gardner, the sister of state voting rights activist Stacy Abrams.

But appealing the case would seem to be a fool's errand. You can't "systemically" purge voters during a federal election. You can't purge voters in the three months before one. You certainly shouldn't be doing it based on a public complaint that some so-and-so went through records and "believes" they have found, with no further evidence, people who must now not be allowed to vote, and especially not when presented with evidence that that has been a terrible way to make supposed "matches" in the past. Maybe take the loss and save the lawyer fees?

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Source: Daily Kos