The fifth Democratic debate in Atlanta brought the spotlight of the presidential primary to Georgia, a state plagued by rampant accusations of voter suppression and unfairly aggressive voter registration purges.
The 2018 governor’s race was marred by accusations of rampant voter suppression, particularly of African-American and other minority voters. There were reports of exceptionally long lines in predominantly black voting precincts, properly registered voters being forced to use provisional ballots, voters being turned away even with proper ID, and precincts being closed or relocated with little advance notice.
In the end, the Democratic candidate, Stacey Abrams, narrowly lost to Republican Brian Kemp.
An Associated Press report published during the 2018 election found that Mr. Kemp — who at the time was the Georgia secretary of state in charge of running the election — had stalled more than 50,000 registrations of voters who were mostly black, claiming issues with their applications. (Mr. Kemp denied the report.)
The state has also been aggressively purging voters from the rolls since 2017, when it canceled the registration of more than 530,000 voters who had been inactive for several years. It was one of the biggest voter roll purges in U.S. history. Last month, the Georgia secretary of state said officials would remove more than 330,000 more.
Voting rights advocates have said the purges often disproportionately focus on younger voters and people of color, who tend to vote Democratic.
Ms. Abrams has made voting rights her central cause, including launching Fair Fight Action, a voting rights advocacy organization. Rumored as a potential vice-presidential candidate and among the most desired presidential endorsers, Ms. Abrams said in an interview with The New York Times that she has pressured the candidates to focus on voting rights.
“I asked two things with all the presidential nominees I’ve met with,” she said in August. “One is that they make voter suppression their No. 1 issue. And two, that they make Georgia a top priority because it is a battleground state.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has called for people to be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18, a point she reiterated at Wednesday’s debate.
“If we had a system like this,” she said, “and we did something about gerrymandering, and we stopped the voting purges, and did something significant about making sure we don’t have money in politics from the outside, Stacey Abrams would be governor of this state right now.”
Yet it was not until late in the debate, after Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey tied a response about abortion legislation to voting rights, that the moderators turned to the topic of voting.
Below are excerpted remarks:
CORY BOOKER: This is a voting issue. This is a voter suppression issue. Right here in this great state of Georgia it was the voter suppression, particularly of African-American communities, that prevented us from having a Gov. Stacey Abrams right now. And that is when you have undemocratic needs, when you suppress people’s votes to get elected, those are the very people you’re going to come after when you’re in office. And this bill opposed by over 70 percent of — the heartbeat bill here opposed by over 70 percent of Georgians is the result from voter suppression.
This gets back to the issue — good making sure we are fighting every single day that whoever is the nominee, they can overcome the attempts to suppress the votes, particularly of low-income minority voters and particularly in the black community, like we saw here in Georgia.
PETE BUTTIGIEG: We know that with the White House in the right hands we can make, for example, Election Day a federal holiday. We can use carrots and sticks to induce states to do the right thing with automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, making it easier for people to vote and in particular recognizing that we cannot allow the kind of racially motivated or partisan voter suppression or gerrymandering that often dictates the outcome of elections before the voting even begins.
Right now we have politicians picking out their voters rather than the other way around. That compounding with what is being done to restrict the right to vote means that our democracy is not worthy of the name.
AMY KLOBUCHAR: I agree with what the mayor has just said, but this is a good example where he has said the right words but I actually have the experience and of leading 11 of the bills that are in that House-passed bill you just referred to. And I think this kind of experience matters. I have been devoted to this from the time that I got to the Senate.
And I think having that experience, knowing how you can get things done, leading the bills to take the social media companies to task, a bipartisan bill to say, yeah, you have to say where these ads come from and how they’re paid for. And stop the unbelievable practice where we still have 11 states that don’t have backup paper ballots. That is my bipartisan bill. And I am so close to getting it done. And the way I get it done is if I’m president.
TULSI GABBARD: Voting rights are essential for our democracy. Securing our elections is essential for our democracy. I’ve introduced legislation called the Securing America’s Elections Act that mandates paper ballots to make sure that every single voter’s voice is heard.
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November 21, 2019 at 06:00PM
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Democrats at Georgia Debate Use the State to Make a Case on Voting Rights - The New York Times
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