Georgia County questions 98 Hispanics' right to vote
Tuesday, November 2, 2004 at 02:54AM
TheSpook
Nearly 100 Hispanic residents in rural Atkinson
County are being required to show up at the county courthouse to prove
they are U.S. citizens before they are allowed to vote. Ninety-eight
letters from the county's Board of Registrars, printed in English and
Spanish, tell the registered voters that their right to vote has been
challenged and that they must show proof of citizenship by Thursday
evening. "We discovered quite accidentally that we had a lot of
non-citizens registered to vote in Atkinson County," said Frank Sutton,
one of three men who initiated the challenge. "We don't feel like
anybody in the country should vote unless they are a citizen." Sutton
told WALB-TV in Albany that he heard about non-citizens registering to
vote from Jerry Metts, an incumbent county commissioner who is seeking
re-election. The station reported that several Hispanic men wrote in
sworn affidavits that Metts came to their homes to solicit votes. When
they told him they weren't citizens, Metts told them they didn't have
to be, the statements said. The statements claim Metts then helped them
complete voter registration applications. Metts' attorney, Shea
Browning, said the commissioner did help some people register but that
he's done nothing wrong. Browning called the charges a personal attack
on his client, and said that Sutton and others are suppressing the vote
of some innocent Hispanics in the process. [more] and [more] and [more]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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