Soon after taking office as Georgia Secretary of State, Handel began a project to purge voter rolls. The procedure involved matching data with information in various sources, such as the Georgia Department of Driver Services database or the Social Security Administration database. Some eligible voters were told that they were "non-citizens", although, in fact, they were citizens. Voter suppression allegations were raised, and the rule became the subject of a federal lawsuit by the ACLU of Georgia and MALDEF, which accused Handel's office of engaging in a "systematic purging procedure" expressly barred by federal law within 90 days of elections.