Is Georgia Refusing To Register Voters
Complaints of Voter Suppression Loom Over Georgia Governor'due south Race
Tensions escalated in the already biting race to be Georgia'southward next governor on Thursday after reports that the state had placed tens of thousands of voters' registrations on a "awaiting" list, fueling charges of voter suppression and election rigging.
The office of Brian Kemp, Georgia's secretary of land and the Republican nominee for governor in Nov's election, has stalled more than 53,000 voter applications, according to a recent report from The Associated Press. The list includes a disproportionately high number of black voters, the study said, which is stirring business organization amid nonpartisan voting rights advocates and supporters of Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate, who is vying to exist the starting time blackness woman in the country to be elected governor.
"Georgia has been a crusade for concern for a number of policies, ranging from polling place closures to technical blocking of registration and purges, and Georgians deserve fair and attainable elections," said Myrna Pérez, the deputy managing director of the Brennan Centre for Justice, a nonpartisan voting and civil rights advocacy group.
Mr. Kemp'southward office uses a controversial method called "exact lucifer" to verify voter applications, which in some cases ways individuals tin can exist purged from voting rolls if their submitted information has even piddling differences from their government identification, such as an entry error or a dropped hyphen. On Thursday, several advocacy groups filed a lawsuit seeking to end the do and force Georgia to reinstate affected voters.
Filed by the Lawyers' Commission for Civil Rights Nether Law and the Campaign Legal Center, the lawsuit alleges that the policy violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Voter Registration Deed of 1993, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments. A spokesman for Mr. Kemp did not immediately reply to a asking for comment on the suit.
Ms. Abrams expressed her concern in a tweet on Wednesday — calling the news "déjà vu" from Republicans. Her entrada, which says it fears the new information could cause confusion among voters and discourage new participants from getting involved, released an boosted argument Midweek evening condemning Mr. Kemp'south actions.
"As he has done for years, Brian Kemp is maliciously wielding the power of his part to suppress the vote for political gain and silence the voices of thousands of eligible voters — the majority of them people of color," said Abigail Collazo, a spokeswoman for Ms. Abrams'south campaign. "This isn't incompetence; information technology'southward malpractice."
[Here is a list of voter registration deadlines for each land . | Here are early voting deadlines for the states that allow it.]
Mr. Kemp's secretarial assistant of state part has denied the accusations of intentional voter suppression, and said the reason for the backlog was shoddy voter registration work by liberal groups.
In a fund-raising email late Wednesday night, Mr. Kemp said to supporters that all 53,000 Georgians now on the pending voting lists will notwithstanding be able to vote on Election 24-hour interval, if they meet all the state'south other identification requirements. He tried to frame the backfire to The Associated Printing written report as partisan bickering.
"Conspicuously, Stacey Abrams is afraid to run on her record," Mr. Kemp said in the email. "Instead, Abrams articles outrage off a 'problem' she created. Abrams uses fear to fund-raise and liberal billionaires continue to bankroll her corrupt enterprise."
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But Democrats say that even if the voters on the list turn out to be eligible to vote, the "pending" status could lead to longer lines and confusion at polling places and might discourage some voters from casting their ballots.
This is not the first time questions of election fairness and voter suppression have come up upwardly in the race and virtually Mr. Kemp's administration of voting in Georgia. Because Mr. Kemp has refused to resign from his position every bit secretarial assistant of state while he runs for governor, Democrats have worried he would use his position to exert undue influence on the election.
In July, amongst complaints about the awaiting-voter system, Mr. Kemp defended the practice.
"Not a single voter whose condition is pending for failure to verify will get rejected this election bicycle," he said in a statement in July. "Despite any merits to the contrary, it has never been easier to register to vote in Georgia and actively engage in the electoral process."
In August, a plan to close the bulk of polling stations in a majority-black Georgia county received enormous backlash, which led to a reversal.
Ms. Pérez, the voting rights expert, said voter suppression efforts often hit poor and minority communities most closely considering "those are the folks who don't accept flexibility or margins to overcome those barriers."
The N.A.A.C.P. released a statement Thursday afternoon saying it is monitoring Mr. Kemp's activities for possible voter suppression, noting Georgia's long history of disenfranchising black voters.
"It's a stain on our organization of republic," said the N.A.A.C.P.'s president and chief executive, Derrick Johnson. "Less than a month before an election which could produce the start African-American female person governor in our nation's history, we are seeing this blazon of voter suppression scheme attempted past a state official whose candidacy for the governorship produces an irremediable conflict of interest."
Is Georgia Refusing To Register Voters,
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/us/politics/georgia-voter-registration-kemp-abrams.html
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