After much deliberation, the Georgia Senate passed a Republican-backed measure to allow Georgians to register to vote online, a vote that was mostly along party lines, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Critics of the bill say that while the concept of online registration is fine, [Sen. Cecil] Staton’s bill still hurts minorities and people of color. Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) said the bill is merely a recasting of past legislation that has already been struck down by the U.S. Department of Justice under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 2009, the Justice Department objected to the state’s voter verification program in Morales v. Handel. In its judgment, the DOJ concluded that the state’s process “does not produce accurate and reliable information and that thousands of citizens who are in fact eligible to vote under Georgia law have been flagged.”
“We have plowed this ground before. SB 406 will have the impact of diluting the voting strength of people of color,” Fort said. “Online access is good in theory, but it is only as good as the verification process. This is a solution in search of a problem. The discrimination impact has been proven beyond any doubt.”
Read more on online voter registration here.