A civil rights organization wants South Carolina to reopen voter registration for nearly 1,900 teens after the state Department of Motor Vehicles failed to notify election officials that they checked the box to register as they got their driver's licenses.
The teens were 17 at the time they went to the DMV, but would be 18 by Election Day. A glitch in the DMV's computers did not identify the teens as qualified and did not present them with an additional electronic form certifying they were citizens, not felons and otherwise qualified to vote.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit Tuesday, a day after early voting started in South Carolina. They provided several possible ways the teens could register and be allowed to cast ballots and Judge Daniel Coble promised a ruling later Friday after hearing arguments.
"This is a case about a fundamental constitutional right," ACLU lawyer Allen Chaney said. "First time voters are going to be wrongfully excluded from a historic election."
But lawyers for the South Carolina Election Commission, the SCDMV, the General Assembly and the Governor's Office all argued while they were sympathetic toward teens who might miss their first shot at voting for president it was just too late to solve registration problems with county election offices busy running early voting.
