In 2009, the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (DOJ) ordered a halt to the state's "voter verification" effort (denying it approval under the Voting Rights Act of 1965), determining that "thousands of citizens who are in fact eligible to vote under Georgia law have been flagged", and that the program was "flawed ... frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian, and/or Hispanic voters to additional and, more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote". This marked the first time since the 1990s that the Justice Department had denied approval to a change in Georgia election practice.