var inline_cta_font_color_352811 = ''; Without planning now, voters of color may again experience election day challenges that can lead to disenfranchisement this November.” Gwinnett, the second most populous county in the state, is a political battleground in Georgia that Republicans are desperately trying to hold on to in the face of swiftly changing demographics. The federal litmus test approved new provisions only if they were found not to decrease minority turnout relative to the status quo. But only one election analyst group has called the race. Gwinnett County, in Atlanta’s northeast suburbs, only has a black population of 25.4 percent, and yet 35.4 percent of the voter registrations challenged come from African Americans (Gwinnett also has a population that is 20 percent Latino, which is roughly the same percentage of Latino voter registrations that have been flagged). They should be allowed to vote.”. In order to comment, you must be logged in as a paid subscriber.

An informed public is critical right now. And that is exactly what Georgia lawmakers did, by serving up yet another round of redistricting in 2015 that included the questionable redrawing of District 105 in Gwinnett County. But that claim dismisses the wave of legal action courts have already taken when it comes to Georgia’s election system. Raffensperger launched an investigation into the chaotic situation, but it hasn’t halted harsh condemnation and claims of voter suppression from Georgia and across the country. Sign up for the Read: Voter suppression is the new old normal. Someone should be held accountable.”, Accountability is vital. Have a confidential tip for our reporters? In the 2018 election cycle, perhaps no state race was as closely watched as Georgia’s gubernatorial contest. Click here to log in or subscribe. I attended Vassar College and the London School. } Where Voter Suppression Hits Hardest in Georgia. Ang found that in the districts covered by preclearance from 1975 to 2013, federal oversight was a major factor in sustained increases in minority turnout relative to counties not covered by the VRA. }

Kemp launched an investigation into the organization, claiming that a preliminary review “revealed significant illegal activities” including forged voter registrations and inaccurate information on applications. TheAtlantic.com Copyright (c) 2020 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. Brian Kemp, Georgia’s current secretary of state and the Republican nominee for governor, has denied the accusations of intentional voter suppression. We want to hear what you think about this article. Rather, they involve larger questions of who is and who is not allowed unfettered access to the ballot in America and how voter suppression undermines trust in democracy.

} “The general election for governor is over, but the citizens and voters of Georgia deserve an election system that they can have confidence in,” Lauren Groh-Wargo, the CEO of Fair Fight and Abrams’s former campaign manager, told reporters last year. That’s wrong,” Palast told reporters on a call on Friday. It meant all-white primaries and at-large districts and intense gerrymandering. if( magazine_button_bg_color_352811 !='' ){ Most of these maneuvers have rather small effects in a vacuum, and it’s difficult to track the effects of any one policy on the outcomes of elections. Who is Gritty, and why is he Donald Trump’s mortal enemy? In the weeks before and after the 2018 election, lawsuits challenging parts of Georgia’s election system, like the exact match registration rule and the rejection of some absentee ballots, did end in victories for civil rights groups. The public must increase pressure not just on the Senate, but also on state and local governments to prepare. Georgia removed more than 534,000 voters that way in 2016 and 2017. Greg Palast, a journalist and the director of the Palast Investigative Fund, said an analysis he commissioned found 340,134 voters were removed from the rolls on the grounds that they had moved – but they actually still live at the address where they are registered. }, Unfortunately, the time to respond is so short, and the resistance so great, that we cannot be sure that America will get things right in time for a November election that today seems far more uncertain, and imperiled.

The lawsuit challenging Georgia’s entire elections system, explained, Why networks haven’t yet called Pennsylvania for Biden. The suit also requests that Georgia be placed back under preclearance requirements, which required a federal judge to approve proposed statewide voting measures to ensure they did not harm minority voters. In the days after voters went to the polls, Kemp’s spokesperson argued that Abrams’s push to wait for votes to be counted was a “disgrace to democracy” and that her concession was “long overdue.”, Many of these criticisms have continued now that the lawsuit has been filed. And that’s as the main tool for protecting voters, the VRA, has been rendered partially inert. In its review of the exact match system, the suit mentions Carlos del Rio, the chair of the Department of Global Health Studies at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. But when concerns about the state’s election security were raised days before the 2018 election, Kemp responded by claiming — with zero evidence — that Democrats had attempted to hack into Georgia’s voter system. Supporters of stricter voting measures argue that these changes are necessary to preserve election integrity and combat fraud (which is exceedingly rare), while opponents say that America’s historical aversion to fair access to the ballot should lead to efforts to make voting easier, not harder. The state has become the battleground for something deeper than the ideas of the candidates themselves; it’s now emblematic of a larger struggle over voting rights that has changed party politics markedly over the past five years.

Myrna Pérez, the director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, sums it up: “Election officials must start working now to reduce voter wait times and ensure resources are distributed fairly this general election. The true nature of voter suppression as an accumulation of everyday annoyances, legal barriers, and confusion has come into full view. George W. Bush won Gwinnett in 2000 with 63.62 percent of the county’s votes, and Republicans have held power there ever since.

if( inline_cta_text_352811 !='' ){ magazine_button_bg_color_352811 = '#ffcf0d'; In the motion, recently elected Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger argued that any voting issues in the 2018 elections were due to the independent actions of local officials.

But much of the research on election law and voter turnout shows that it’s the combination of major policies and minor barriers—like polling-place changes, long lines at the polls, and small bureaucratic hurdles—that have real and measurable impacts on turnout.

For example, Georgia’s early-voting period featured a record-shattering 2 million votes cast, a number that dwarfs the thousands of people who could have faced disenfranchisement under the exact-match law. The county’s white population decreased from two-thirds white to 41 percent white between 2000 and 2013. The 2018 gubernatorial election was fraught with allegations of foul play directed at now-Governor Brian Kemp, who was the sitting Secretary of State at the time. jQuery("#inline_cta_btn_352811 a").attr("href",inline_cta_url_352811); While it is too early to say how it will fare in court, the lawsuit’s depiction of the struggles of nonwhite voters are part of an argument that voting rights groups have often advanced when challenging state restrictions: that obstacles to voting have created a two-tiered voting system that disproportionately affects voters of color and limits the power of their votes. (1,557), Chatham County, where the city of Savannah is. jQuery("#magazine_text_352811").html(magazine_text_352811); “Systematically underfunding elections while spending billions on ineffective, violent policing and mass incarceration further underscores why people are in the streets demanding that leaders defund police and invest in critical community needs like safe elections.”, Robinson argued that there are legislative actions Congress can take: “This is why it’s so urgent that the Senate act immediately to fully fund safe elections in the HEROES Act, and mandate that states spend that money addressing and preventing problems like the ones Georgia primary voters experienced today.” jQuery("#inline_cta_btn_352811").html(inline_cta_button_text_352811); Last modified on Wed 26 Feb 2020 12.58 EST. } In a primary? Georgia's Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, was the official in charge of determining whether or not voters were allowed to vote in the November 2018 election and has been accused of voter suppression. Georgia’s recent history with voter disenfranchisement has been a messy one. On my side of town, we brought stadium chairs.”, LeBron James went to the heart of the matter, observing amid Tuesday’s troubles, “Everyone talking about ‘How do we fix this?’ They say, ‘Go out and vote’? Some states already had robust mail-in voting systems in place, while others were well-prepared to shift to more mail-heavy systems. In December, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that zero information supporting Kemp’s “unsubstantiated claims” was found. Two years ago, Kemp turned down the Department of Homeland Security’s offer to provide election and cybersecurity assistance before the 2016 election, saying that the move would have given the federal government too much power over the state system. It is good that people are fired up about the meltdown in their state and demanding accountability for what went wrong.