Every vote counts.

  VOTE!   VOTE!   VOTE!   VOTE!

No, I don't mean vote four times.    But do vote -- and take three people with you to vote also.

We're facing so much effort to suppress the vote that we must fight in the courts and at the polling places.    If you are told your registration is on hold, demand to have a provisional ballot.   And then do what's required to clear up any problem.

The problem we face here in Georgia, as well as in some other states , is that the Republican candidate for governor is also the Secretary of State, who is also in charge of the whole election process.   He has refused to relinquish control of that during the election he is running in, even though some of his policies have been shot down by federal court challenges.

But we have an 11th hour wrinkle.   The office of Georgia Sec. of State has issued a statement less than two days before the election accusing the Democratic Party of having hacked into the election registration system.

What this appears to be is that a cyber-vulnerability was discovered by a group that tests voting systems for just such vulnerabilities.   Of course, their method is to try to hack a system to see where it is vulnerable.   The difference is the use to be made of this.   Legitimate testing is then duly reported to the authorities;  it is not used to alter the results.

Somehow Kemp's campaign has twisted this into accusing the Democrats of something nefarious, although there is no evidence they did anything except pass along information that was given to them about the discovered vulnerability.  It's unclear what their supposed motive was -- perhaps to make the Secretary of State look incompetent?    That wouldn't be too hard.  I'll update this as we get new information.

As of late evening Monday, we're told the GBI is investigating;  but they have released no statement;  neither has the FBI, if they are involved.   Stacie Abrams has denounced this as a political stunt on the part of the Kemp campaign -- and that's where it stands unless and until something turns up as evidence against one side or another.   Will it affect the vote?   Probably any effect will be more or less evenly split -- those who believe the Kemp charge and those who agree with Abrams that it was a political stunt on Kemp's part.

In the meantime, get as many legitimately qualified voters you know to the polls to cast a legal ballot.   Let's overwhelm the attempts to suppress and steal this election.   After all, we also have gerrymandering to overcome, which takes even more Democratic votes to win congressional races.

Ralph