Georgia county agrees to restore black voters' rights

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Georgia county agrees to restore black voters' rights

By KATHLEEN FOODY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTA — Mar 8, 2017, 2:39 PM ET

Election officials in Georgia's sparsely populated, overwhelmingly black Hancock County agreed Wednesday to restore voting rights to dozens of African-American registered voters they disenfranchised ahead of a racially divided local election.

About three-quarters of the people they removed from the voting rolls — nearly all of them black — still live in the voting district and will be restored to the county's registered voter list under the settlement.

"We want to make sure that a purge program like the one that played out in the fall of 2015 never happens again," said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, which sued the county in federal court.

Hancock County Board of Elections members maintain that they weren't targeting or trying to intimidate black voters by sending sheriff's deputies to summon people to appear before them and prove they lived in the county.

Board members said they were complying with Georgia law, which allows any voter to challenge another's eligibility, and requires that a sheriff or deputy deliver documents in a voter registration challenge, said their lawyer, Mike O'Quinn.

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/georgia-county-restore-black-voters-rights-us-law-45998433

[Jake Stern]

1. Should be that people who challenge voters MUST provide proof of ineligibility

instead of a voter having to defend it.

[brer cat]

2. Goodness me.

We just need to give these fine folks some "figuring out" time. Why, it's only been around since 1993, and some folks around here think about as slow as cold sorghum syrup runs, bless their hearts. It's not like Jim Crow's been hanging out down at the Board of Elections.

"In those instances where federal law goes further, then federal law has to apply because it is supreme," O'Quinn said. "And that took some figuring out in this case."

[Doreen]

3. All I can say is,

"how mighty white of them."