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For Immediate Release
November, 12 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Derrick Robinson, Lawyers’ Committee, DRobinson@LawyersCommittee.org, 202-662-8317
Federal Judge Grants Emergency TRO to Halt Illegal Mail Ballot Rejections in Gwinnett County
Court finds that the process of rejecting ballots due to an omitted or incorrect birth year violates the Civil Rights Act
WASHINGTON
Today, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, partnering with the Coalition for Good Governance, secured an important win for voters in Gwinnett County. On Sunday, November 11th, the groups filed an emergency motion seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent officials in Gwinnett County from rejecting absentee ballots containing immaterial errors or omissions. Today, Judge Leigh Martin May granted the request, finding that Gwinnett County's process of rejecting absentee ballots on the basis of an omitted or incorrect birth year violates the Civil Rights Act. The court orders that these ballots be counted in the November 6th election.
"For the public to have confidence in our electoral process, it is critical that every vote be counted and that every voice be heard," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "Yet officials in communities like Gwinnett County remain bent on erecting unnecessary barriers for voters and continue to take extraordinary steps to justify their rejection of absentee ballots. From the start, we observed that Gwinnett County officials were rejecting absentee mail ballots cast by minority voters at far higher rates than that for white voters. This is an outcome that can only be explained along lines of race. Our democracy works when every vote is counted and we will continue to fight against the ongoing voter suppression attempts that we are witnessing across Georgia this election season."
The temporary restraining order was issued as part of a lawsuit filed in October challenging the extraordinarily high rate of rejections of absentee mail ballots in Georgia and, in particular, the rejection of ballots cast by minority voters by Gwinnett County. The defendants are Georgia Secretary of State Robyn A. Crittenden, members of the Georgia State Board of Elections, and members of the Gwinnett County Board of Registration and Elections.
Exacerbating the situation, the bulk of rejections in Gwinnett County are for the inconsequential failure of the voter to fill in the year of birth on the outside envelope, although the voter's identity has been verified through signature match.
"We are very gratified that Judge May affirmed the rights of these eligible citizens to vote and directed Gwinnett County to count these absentee ballots for the November 6, 2018 election," said Atlanta lawyer Bruce Brown, who, along with John Powers of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, represents the Plaintiffs in the Martin case. "We urge Gwinnett County, and all the other counties, to not only count the absentee ballots that are subject to Judge May's decision but also to count any other ballot that has been rejected for reasons immaterial to the voter's qualification to vote. Doing so is consistent with State law, required by Federal statutory and constitutional law, and will advance our shared interest in honoring and protecting the right to vote."
Marilyn Marks, Executive Director of Coalition for Good Governance, said: "This order re-enfranchising voters is another significant step of progress in our continuing fight for fair elections in Georgia. There will be at least 534 voters whose right to vote has been vindicated by the Court's order. We expect that there will be significantly more ballots counted when the full impact is analyzed. Coalition for Good Governance has reached out to Gwinnett officials to insist that they thoroughly research all batches of rejected ballots to count every ballot covered by the Court's order. Our organization has been pleased to underwrite and support this successful lawsuit to protect voters' rights."
View the full order here.
About the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, was formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to involve the private bar in providing legal services to address racial discrimination. Now in its 55th year, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is continuing its quest to "Move America Toward Justice." The principal mission of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is to secure, through the rule of law, equal justice for all, particularly in the areas of criminal justice, fair housing and community development, economic justice, educational opportunities, and voting rights.
About Coalition for Good Governance
Coalition for Good Governance is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization advocating for secure, transparent, and fair elections. The organization is also suing Secretary Kemp, the State Board of Elections, and Fulton County election officials in U.S. District Court in Atlanta (Curling v Kemp 17 cv 2989) to stop the use of Georgia's unverifiable electronic voting system.
The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today.
(202) 662-8600LATEST NEWS
US Argues 'Emergency' of Iran War Means Israel Needs 20,000+ More Bombs Without Congressional Approval
'Who cares about Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and aggression?" asked one human rights expert.
Mar 07, 2026
The US State Department is hiding behind the war against Iran that was started by US President Donald Trump last week to justify an emergency order to ship more than 20,000 bombs—estimated at a value of $660 million—to Israel, skirting a pending approval process for the sale by Congress.
In a statement issued quietly on Friday night, the State Department said 12,000 BLU-110A/B general purpose, 1,000-pound bombs had been determined for approval, noting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has "provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and defense services is in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act."
Not included in the statement, according to the New York Times, were additional parts of the sale that "include 10,000 bombs of 500 pounds each and 5,000 small-diameter bombs."
"This is an emergency of the Trump administration's own creation." —Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.)
According to the Times:
The State Department did not mention these details in the announcement, but two current US officials and a former, Josh Paul, who worked on weapons transfers at the State Department, said they were part of the emergency sale. The current officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive arms transactions.
This is the first time that the second Trump administration has formally declared an emergency, allowed under the Arms Export Control Act, to bypass Congress to sell arms to Israel. The administration has bypassed the informal approval process in Congress three times to sell arms or send weapons aid to Israel, but previously has not declared an emergency.
The push for the "emergency" arms sale comes as Israel pummels Lebanon with airstrikes, forcing an estimate 500,000 people or more in southern regions outside of Beirut to flee their homes. It also coincides with Israeli forces hitting targets in Iran alongside the US in what experts say is a wholly illegal attack on that country.
Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, denounced the move by the Rubio in a Friday statement.
“Today's invocation of the Arms Export Control Act's emergency authority to bypass congressional review for two munitions cases to Israel exposes a stark contradiction at the heart of this administration's case for war," said Meeks. "The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted it was fully prepared for this war. Rushing to invoke emergency authority to circumvent Congress tells a different story. This is an emergency of the Trump administration's own creation."
Others also questioned the emergency sale, especially given Israel's record of genocide in Gaza over the last two years and its pivotal role in pushing the Trump administration toward a war of choice with Iran.
Meeks, in his statement, argued that key questions about Trump's war in Iran remain unanswered.
"What is the endgame? What preparations have been made to protect American citizens in the region? And how much will this war cost the American people?" asked Meeks. "The administration has provided no credible answers. The American people deserve answers, and Congress must demand them.”
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"Trump loves putting his name on things, but this should be the only building for which he is remembered by history."
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The bombing of a primary school by US-Israeli coalition forces in southern Iranian town of Minab that killed an estimated 160 or more civilians—mostly children—on February 28 should be investigated as a possible war crime, Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.
After reviewing satellite footage from before and after the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school—as well as reviewing video taken in the wake of the bombing and other materials—the international human rights group said the available evidence indicates "that the attack was carried out by highly accurate, guided munitions, rather than errant weapons whose guidance or propulsion systems failed or were otherwise disrupted and randomly struck the area."
The attack on the school would be among the deadliest war crimes against civilians by US forces in years. Occurring on the first day of bombings of what President Donald Trump and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dubbed Operation Epic Fury, the slaughter of schoolchildren—though the US has denied responsibility thus far—coincides with Hegseth repeatedly bragging that the US military would no longer follow "stupid rules of engagement" in the execution of its operations.
"The school was in use, and children were in attendance on the day of the attack," the group said. "Human Rights Watch found no evidence that would indicate that the school was being used for military purposes, though researchers were not able to speak to witnesses of the strikes, families of those killed, or other informed sources."
President Trump should hold Secretary Hegseth and everyone else responsible for killing Iranian children accountable, and bring this illegal, unnecessary war of choice to an end.”
According to HRW:
The United States should immediately assess its responsibility for this strike and make the findings public. If the US military carried out the strike, it should conduct a full investigation into the operational and policy failures that led it to strike a school, fully account for the civilian harm caused, hold those responsible accountable including through prosecution, and commit to changes that would ensure such failures will not be repeated in future operations.
Analyses of the bombing by various news outlets have provided strong evidence that US forces were the most likely culprits of the attack. HRW was told by an Israeli military spokesperson that it was “not aware of any [Israeli military] strikes in the area.” Hegseth said during a Wednesday press conference that the Pentagon was investigating the matter, but offered no further indication of concern in the matter.
During that same press briefing, as HRW notes in its analysis of the attack, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, said that US forces from the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group were providing “pressure” in preceding days along the “southeastern side" of the Iranian coast as he pointed to an area of a map showing coalition bombings that included Minab.
“A prompt and thorough investigation is needed into this attack, including if those responsible should have known that a school was there and that it would be full of children and their teachers before midday,” said Sophia Jones, open source researcher with the Digital Investigations Lab at Human Rights Watch. “Those responsible for an unlawful attack should be held to account, including prosecutions of anyone responsible for war crimes.”
“Allies of the US and Israel should insist on accountability for the Shajareh Tayyebeh school attack and for an end to attacks on civilian infrastructure in all of their operations across the region, before more civilians, including children, are unlawfully killed,” she added.
Human Rights Watch is not the only one demanding an independent investigation.
"This mass killing of children is unconscionable. It bears the hallmarks of a war crime," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Friday after a New York Times investigation found that US forces were likely behind the strike. "Trump and Hegseth must answer for the US's role and they must be held accountable. People deserve the full truth. There must be an immediate and transparent investigation."
On Friday, as Common Dreams reported, another school in Iran was struck by US-Israel bombings, bringing the total number of schools hit to four in the first six days of the unprovoked military attack.
"The American people do not want their tax dollars spent on killing children in Iran, just as they did not want their tax dollars spent on killing children in Gaza," said the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in a statement. "The latest U.S.-Israel attacks on schools in Iran are blatant war crimes. So was the original slaughter of 180 schoolgirls that the Pentagon refuses to take responsibility for."
“Every child murdered or injured in these indiscriminate US-Israel bombing attacks is a sign that the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth is mimicking the tactics of the cowardly and genocidal Israeli military, which has mastered the art of bombing men, women, and children from afar," the group added. "The American people expect better from our armed forces. President Trump should hold Secretary Hegseth and everyone else responsible for killing Iranian children accountable, and bring this illegal, unnecessary war of choice to an end.”
While the war continues and Trump on Saturday said the people of Iran should expect bombing and destruction to increase not decrease over the weekend, voices for peace continued to demand a swift end to the violence and said the US president should forever be held responsible for unleashing such unnecessary bloodshed—including the specific devastation unleashed on the school in Minab.
"Trump loves putting his name on things, but this should be the only building for which he is remembered by history," said Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, referencing the school where the massacre took place.
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'This Is Madness': More Talk of Boots on the Ground as Trump Says 'Today Iran Will Be Hit Very Hard'
"The American people do not want more war in the Middle East. No boots on the ground. No more war."
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A report late Friday that US President Donald Trump is more bullish in private about putting American soldiers on the ground in Iran than he has been publicly stirred immediate condemnation among lawmakers opposed to the illegal military attack, now entering its second week of destructive and deadly operations.
"This is madness," declared Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) in response to NBC News reporting, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the conversations, that stated Trump "has privately expressed serious interest in deploying US troops on the ground inside of Iran."
While the White House pushed back on the contents of the reporting, Trump himself has said that he does not hold reservations about deploying ground troops if he deems it necessary.
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground," Trump told the New York Post on Monday. "Like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it. I say, ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also reacted to the new reporting.
" Donald Trump is hellbent on escalating his reckless war and is now considering putting US boots on the ground in Iran," said Schumer in an online statement. "The American people do not want more war in the Middle East. No boots on the ground. No more war."
Early morning on Saturday, Trump issued a fresh threat to the people of Iran, declaring in a social media post: "Today Iran will be hit very hard!"
In the same post, the US president falsely claimed that Iran had "surrendered" to neighboring countries in the region following a series of missile attacks over recent days by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps units on select targets in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and others.
What Trump was referring to was a video message issued by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in the day in which he apologized for the strikes—carried out by IRGC commanders operating independently in the wake of the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israeli strike earlier this week—and said that no further such attacks would take place “unless those countries launch an attack on us."
In his remarks, Pezeshkian rejected Trump's insistence on Friday for an "unconditional surrender" by Iran. “That we surrender unconditionally is a dream that they must take with themselves to the grave," he said. "What we adhere to are international laws and humanitarian framework."
Pezeshkian called for diplomacy to bring the war of aggression by the US and Israel to an end. "We aim to work hand‑in‑hand with our dear brothers and neighbors in the region to establish lasting peace and stability, and we hope this goal will be achieved,” he said.
However, if hostilities launched from factions in neighboring countries resumed, Pezeshkian warned, "all military bases and interests of criminal America and the fake Zionist regime on land, at sea, and in the air across the region will be considered primary targets and will come under the powerful and crushing strikes of the mighty armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
In remarks on Thursday, after Trump previously refused to rule out boots on the ground, Iranian Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Abbas Araghch told NBC News that the country's armed forces are prepared.
“We are waiting for them,” Araghchi said. “Because we are confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.”
Foreign policy experts warn that Trump has created an untenable situation for himself by demanding the "unconditional surrender" as well as stating that he must personally be involved in the choosing the next leader of Iran—an overt call for regime change in a nation of 90 million people.
"No country surrenders from airpower alone," said Ryan Costello, policy director for the National Iranian American Council, a Washington DC-based think tank, on Friday. "Trump has created a trap for himself: either he backs down on his unattainable goal to dictate Iran, or he climbs up the escalation ladder, considering even more disastrous steps like boots on the ground."
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