The move by the ACLU was supported by an informal coalition of groups including the Georgia NAACP, government watchdog group Common Cause and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. They met on the campus of downtown’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, who also serves as board chairman for voter advocacy group the New Georgia Project, is senior pastor.

Several of the groups, including New Georgia Project and the state NAACP, have in the past requested and received parts or all of the same public voter file, using the information either for field work or in litigation. Still, those groups said Friday that it was in the public’s interest for Kemp to deny the federal panel’s request, given no evidence of widespread voter fraud and little explanation of how the information will be used.

That brought a biting response from Kemp’s office.

“It is ridiculous that these groups are asking us not to comply with Georgia’s Open Records Act when they have been the beneficiaries of this very law,” said Kemp spokeswoman Candice Broce. “We are not in the business of denying public information to anyone on the basis of political affiliation or some other belief.”