A group seeking to increase voter registration nationwide joined Get Loud Arkansas on Wednesday to file a federal lawsuit challenging a recent state emergency rule requiring handwritten signatures on voter registration documents.
Vote.org and its Arkansas counterpart argue that the rule, which requires so-called wet signatures on paper voter registration applications, is arbitrary, was only passed after Get Loud Arkansas successfully registered hundreds of voters, and violates parts of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The plaintiffs want a judge to find that the rule violates civil rights law and stop the state from enforcing it or rejecting registration requests because they were electronically signed.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville, names as defendants Secretary of State John Thurston and members of the Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners, which approved the emergency rule on Nov. 23. April. The Executive Subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council approved the rule on May 2. According to the lawsuit, the rule went into effect on May 4 and will last until September 1 unless a final rule is adopted.
The nonprofits are joined as plaintiffs by Nikki Pastor and Blake Loper, Arkansas residents who were denied registration under the emergency rule that vets signatures.
“We will confront any act of repression that creates obstacles to the fundamental right to vote,” Get Loud Arkansas executive director and former state senator Joyce Elliott said in a news release announcing the lawsuit. “Generational disenfranchisement must be relegated to the past, where it belongs.”
The rule states that electronic signatures are only permitted in agencies that are explicitly permitted by the state constitution to use computer processes to register people to vote. Those agencies include the Office of Driver Services of the Division of Revenue of the Department of Finance and Administration, state revenue offices, public assistance agencies and disability agencies.
Get Loud Arkansas volunteers created an online tool that allows Arkansans to complete a voter registration application online and sign electronically, the complaint states. Volunteers would then print the completed forms with the registrant’s permission and submit them to county clerks.
In February, members of the nonprofit received multiple assurances from the secretary of state’s office that this approach was satisfactory, the complaint states.
“In fact, the use of an electronic signature on a voter registration application was so uncontroversial in Arkansas that the Secretary of State’s office stated on multiple occasions that an electronic signature should be treated no differently than a wet signature, and the Attorney General confirmed this in a formal opinion,” the complaint states.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin released an opinion on April 10 stating that electronic signatures must satisfy state constitutional requirements. However, he cautioned that electronically signed forms should remain those created and distributed by the secretary of state.
Members of the nonprofit Vote.Org, who also advocate for easier, more widespread voter registration and have used online registration tools, joined the lawsuit to take a stand against voter suppression in the state said CEO Andrea Hailey.
“Voter suppression advocates in Arkansas and across the country are shamefully trying to rig the rules of the game against their own voters,” Hailey said in the news release announcing the lawsuit. “But they should know not to think they can intimidate voters without facing any resistance. This wet signature mandate is a direct attack on the convenient, secure and reliable online voter registration tools that so many voters around the world depend on. The origins”.
The lawsuit also alleges that Thurston’s Feb. 28 decision to advise all county clerks not to accept electronically signed voter registration forms was a direct response to a Feb. 26 Arkansas Times article about the success of the group’s voter registration drive.
Between Thurston’s warning on Feb. 28 and additional advice from an Arkansas Association of Counties attorney sent on March 8, many county clerks began rejecting forms submitted by the nonprofit that had been electronically signed. , the complaint states.
Chris Madison, director of the State Board of Election Commissioners, has said the emergency rule was intended to provide clarity to the state’s 75 county clerks and is in line with Amendment 51 to the state constitution, which he said, established the state’s voter registration system and only allows certain state agencies to accept electronic signatures.
Madison and Thurston’s spokespeople did not return messages seeking comment on the lawsuit Wednesday night.
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