Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate Concerned About Georgians Using Their Right to Vote
In audio from a ticketed campaign event obtained by
Rolling Stone, Georgia gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp expressed concern about his opponent’s voter turnout operation, “especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote.” Kemp, a Republican and the current Georgia secretary of state, has been engaged in a fierce electoral battle against his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams. On the campaign trail, Abrams has
accused Kemp of using voter suppression tactics against minority and African-American voters. Earlier this month,
Kemp was sued by a coalition of civil rights groups over a 2017 voting law that required more than 50,000 people to take additional steps to verify their identities in order to vote. This week, the Georgia NAACP filed complaints with state election officials, claiming that votes for Abrams were mistakenly showing up as votes for Kemp on some voting machines, as reported by
USA Today. According to
recent PRRI polling, 56 percent of Democrats say that eligible voters being denied the right to vote is a major problem in our current election system. Only 19 percent of Republicans agree that this is a major issue. White Americans are far less likely than black and Hispanic Americans to express concerns about eligible voters being denied the right to vote. Only 27 percent of white Americans say this is a serious issue, compared to 60 percent of Hispanic and 62 percent of black Americans.