Stacey Abrams Focuses on Georgia Voter Limits in Bid to Unseat Kemp

(Bloomberg) -- Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, is urging her supporters to get to the polls when early voting begins next week so that they have time to address any possible challenges to their right to vote.

In back-to-back events in Atlanta and the southern part of the state on Wednesday, a committee backing Abrams called out Republican Governor Brian Kemp for his support of what they say are efforts to suppress voting by Black Georgians and other people of color. Abrams is trying to unseat Kemp, who defeated her in a close vote four years ago.

“We will replace him by voting early starting Oct. 17,” Abrams told her supporters in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

The Atlanta rally, led by Black male leaders from around the state, highlighted new restrictions in an election law Kemp signed last year, which led to 64,000 mostly frivolous challenges to voter registrations. The second event was a press conference in Quitman, site of a notorious effort to prosecute Black voting activists 12 years ago, when Kemp was the state’s top elections official.

Those prosecutions followed a successful push to flip the racial composition of an school board from majority Black to majority White. It continued for four years and resulted in no convictions. The saga became a national symbol of voter suppression in the South.

The criticism of Kemp echoes an allegation Abrams made repeatedly during her first run against Kemp, when he was secretary of state. Kemp had pledged to crack down on voter fraud, a threat Democrats called a transparent excuse for making it harder for minorities to vote.

The Quitman event, which featured several of those arrested 12 years ago, was designed to coincide with a Kemp fundraiser in the city.

“I am appalled at the fact that Brian Kemp has the audacity to come to Quitman, Georgia,” said Diane Thomas, a middle school math teacher who was arrested in 2010 after winning a school board seat.

Felony Arrests

After the win by Thomas, investigators from Kemp’s office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies descended on the town of fewer than 4,000, eventually arresting Thomas and 11 others on more than 100 felony counts of voter fraud and alleging that they had illegally helped voters with absentee ballots. A court acquitted the last of what became known as the Quitman 10 + 2 in 2014.

Abrams alleged after her 2018 loss that voter suppression supported by Kemp’s office cost her the election. She did not concede, a fact that Republicans say made her the precursor to former President Donald Trump and his unfounded stolen-election claims in 2020.

On Sept. 30, a federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Fair Fight Action, a group founded by Abrams, which alleged the state’s handling of absentee ballots violated Georgia voters’ constitutional rights. Kemp’s campaign cheered the ruling, saying it put Abrams’ voter-suppression claims to rest.

Kemp campaign spokesman Tate Mitchell cited the dismissal in response to Wednesday’s events.

“Stacey Abrams and her desperate campaign have already lost in court on their false claims of voter suppression, but that won’t stop them continuing to lie and fear monger to try and earn votes,” Mitchell said in an email.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.