Voter registration error exposed 14 years later

Georgia ACLU'S legal director, Sean Young is leading the effort to correct an error that's forced voters to do extra and unnecessary work when they're trying to get registered for the first time.

"There's false and misleading information..."

The problem is in a highlighted section of the form which asks for a copy of a photo ID and proof of address to be mailed in advance; however, it turns out you don't need either one of those things until you show up to vote in person.

Correct version of voter form

Asking people to make time in their busy lives to get copies of documents, and mail them in, could be the difference between someone missing the deadline to register before an election or not.

"It's really unclear why there was this false and misleading information to begin with."

The Georgia Secretary of State's office acknowledges that this was, in fact, a mistake that's persisted for more than a decade. They've changed the wording of the downloadable form online, but there are still many paper forms out there that still have the wrong information.

The Secretary of State's office is blaming the Cathy Cox administration from 2004, and it's ironic it happened then, because she was a Democrat, and traditionally speaking, democrats want voter registration to have less barriers to entry.