This archive report was first published on 25 June 2021.
Justice Department Challenges Georgia's Voting Law ¶
June 25, 2021
The Justice Department has taken a major step in challenging state-level ballot restrictions enacted since the 2020 election by suing Georgia over a sweeping voting law passed by the state's Republican-led legislature.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the lawsuit on Friday, citing the rights of all eligible citizens to vote as the central pillars of democracy. 'The rights from which all other rights ultimately flow,' he said.
The complaint accuses the Georgia law of effectively discriminating against Black voters and seeks to show that state lawmakers intended to do so. It says that several of the law's provisions 'were passed with a discriminatory purpose,' according to Kristen Clarke, the head of the department's civil rights division.
The lawsuit is among the most aggressive efforts to expand or preserve voter protections since the Supreme Court in 2013 overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
It comes days after congressional Republicans blocked the most ambitious federal voting rights legislation in a generation, dealing a blow to Democrats' efforts to preserve voting rights. President Biden and Democratic leaders pledged to continue working to steer federal voting rights legislation into law and to escalate pressure on states and Republicans.
Georgia was the center of President Donald J. Trump's monthslong effort to overturn the election results, with him seizing on numerous false conspiracy theories about the election results there.
Passed in March, the Georgia law ushered in a raft of restrictions to voting access and sharply altered the balance of power over election administration.
Democrats in Washington are struggling to find an effective strategy for countering laws like Georgia's that are advancing through more than a dozen Republican-led states this year.
