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Voting Rights Act: Secretary of State Kemp On What The Court’s Ruling Means For GA Elections

June 25th, 2013

http://www.sos.georgia.gov/misc/brianbio.htm

As the Voting Rights debate shifts to Congress, Georgia’s top elections official says the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling will have a big effect on the state right now.

Click here to listen to the story airing on Morning Edition 6.26.13

Secretary of State Brian Kemp says the ruling could have an impact on Georgia’s election system in the long and short term.

“And that could be something as big as redistricting or as small as changing a voter registration form… just the wording on that.”

Under Tuesday’s ruling, Georgia will no longer need the federal government’s approval before re-drawing State House and Senate district lines as well as the state’s Congressional districts. Kemp says local elections officials also won’t need federal approval ahead of time.

“If they wanted to decrease the number of precincts in a county to save money because a lot of people are early voting now… before you would have had to get that pre-cleared. Now, it seems that though you will not have to do that.”

But, if some contend an election change violates the remaining parts of the Voting Rights Act, they could sue. Kemp says his office will continue to follow Section 2 of the Act. That section says states can’t have voting practices or procedures that discriminate based on race, color or language.