Georgia Democratic nominee for governor, Stacie Abrams, has acknowledged that Brian Kemp will be the next governor. But she makes a distinction from that and "conceding" defeat and giving up her fight for a fair election. She has simply concluded that the numbers are not there for her to win -- but she still wants to challenge the "mismanagement" of the whole election.
Abrams has formed a new advocacy group, "Fair Fight Georgia," and is considering filing a lawsuit against the state for gross mismanagement of the election process.
Lest this sound like sour grapes of a sore loser, Abrams does have valid accusations -- the most glaring being that her opponent, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, has overseen the election process while himself being the Republican candidate for governor in that election.
More than that, according to an article on Vox.com, Kemp's actions paint him as an ardent voter suppressor.
1. Kemp's dual role as a candidate and also the top election official overseeing his own election became a subject of concern nationwide, bringing much negative publicity to the state. Kemp refused to give up his role as chief elections officer until two days after the election.
2. In the last five years leading up to this election, Kemp's office had purged hundreds of thousands of names from voter roles -- a move he claimed was an effort at maintaining up to date records, removing people who had died or moved away. Criticism came however because of some of the tactics, which included purging people who had not voted within a certain period of time and failed to respond to a "postcard" notification asking them to verify their registration information. Critics noted how easily we all ignore insignificant-looking, mail-in, form-postcards in the pile of trash mail we routinely receive.
3. In addition, 53,000 recent voter registrations (70% of them from people of color) were put on hold for failing the extreme "exact match" process of comparing registration data with other state records. Anecdotal examples included such trifles as the omission of a hyphen in a hyphenated last name, or the typographical transposition of two letters in an obvious name (like Smtih for Smith). Yes, these voters were allowed, if they asked, to fill out a provisional ballot -- and then had to later go to the county office to clear up the inconsistency, which is an extra hardship for low-wage earners who can't take time off work.
4. During the vote counting process, some counties were throwing out absentee ballots where someone decided the signature on the ballot didn't match the one on record. As someone pointed out, in some instances this involved one signature having been required on a touch-screen pad -- which almost always fails to match close scrutiny with a regular signature.
5. In the final weeks leading up to the election, Kemp was hit with multiple lawsuits from the NAACP, the ACLU and local organizations accusing election officials of practices that negated votes that routinely affected voters of color more often.
6. Even before the election, Abrams headed the New Georgia Project, which worked to register new voters of color. This often led to clashes with Kemp and his office over how registration applications were being processed, even before the election.
7. Kemp's defense has been to push back against complaints, citing the number of new voters that have been registered during his term as Secretary of State and saying that "voting has never been easier in our state." He also says his concern has been to get rid of voter fraud -- despite the fact that study after study has shown that in person, voter impersonation almost never happens.
I don't know what Abrams will decide as her next step, but I want to thank her personally for the efforts she has made to ensure that every eligible voter has a chance to register and vote and that every vote cast gets counted. If it takes the courts to complete her task, then let's support her in that.
Ralph
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