SCLC joins lawsuit against Georgia's new election law
ATLANTA - The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has joined a lawsuit against Georgia for its new controversial sweeping new overhaul of election laws.
The SCLC claimed the new law prevents many Black and disenfranchised citizens from voting.
"We want to prevent other states from passing bills that pretty much amounts to voting intimidation," said Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., president and CEO of the SCLC.
The organization joined the lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, The African Methodist Episcopal Church and others.
"They want to prevent what occurred in the last election with the astronomical turnout that was greater than ever before," he said. "More than 5 million people voted in the 2020 elections in Georgia. Four million in the runoff race for the U.S. Senate, and a very large percentage of new voters were Black voters. Despite Covid-19, there were more than 1.3 million absentee votes, nearly 30 percent were cast by mail. African Americans accounted for 42 percent of those requesting absentee ballots."
RELATED: What is in Georgia's new election law?
It's one of several lawsuits filed after the governor signed the new voting law.
"We are suing Georgia, so other states will not see Georgia as the model of where America is headed," Dr. Steele says. "It is an attack on the Black voting power. There has been too much bloodshed and too many lives lost for us to ever turn back, and the time is now to move this nation forward where all citizens have the right to vote and no baseless claims or intimidation tactics will stop where America is headed."
Another lawsuit challenging the new law in federal court argues the law violates free speech.
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