50,000 Missing Georgia Voter-Registration Applications? Nothing to See Here

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/30/50-000-missing-georgia-voter-registration-applications-nothing-to-see-here.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Fpolitics+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Politics%29


50,000 Missing Georgia Voter-Registration Applications? Nothing to See Here
Patricia Murphy

snip//

And at the center of the fight are two young, sometimes brash, diametrically opposed state politicians—Stacey Abrams, the African-American Georgia House minority leader who is seen by Democrats as a fast-rising star, and Kemp, the aggressive young secretary of state who is on most short lists as a future GOP governor contender.

Kemp and Abrams clashed earlier this year when Kemp made highly publicized voter-fraud allegations against the New Georgia Project, a nonprofit Abrams founded to register as many of the 800,000 unregistered black and other minorities in the state as possible. The investigation is ongoing, but Kemp has yet to make public any evidence of widespread fraud by the group. Allies of Abrams call the fraud investigation a witch hunt and say the case of the missing registrations is just the second act of the play against her.

“If Brian Kemp thought he could intimidate the New Georgia Project and get away with it, he will have a rude awakening because an attack on the New Georgia Project is an attack on the ability of organizations to register and engage citizens, and that’s an attack on all of us,” said Francys Johnson, president of the Georgia NAACP. “We will mortgage every asset we have to defend the right to the ballot. It is sacred in Georgia.”

Advocates estimate that parallel efforts by the New Georgia Project, the NAACP, and other civil-rights groups should have put between 130,000 and 150,000 new, mostly minority voters on the state’s active-voter rolls. But according to a side-by-side comparison conducted by the New Georgia Project of the secretary of state’s latest active and pending voter lists, up to 50,000 of the applicants do not show up on either.

“Still today, it’s unclear what happened to tens of thousands of those applications,” said an official with NGP.

People familiar with Georgia’s paper ballot registration process say that even when it is run with the best of intentions, the system is riddled with inefficiencies, human error, poorly trained workers, and imprecise rules about when Kemp’s office is required to finalize the voter lists. “It’s just a big, broken system,” said one Democrat. “These are very real problems. I don’t know if it’s a coordinated attempt to suppress the black vote, but there’s no sense of urgency in Kemp’s office to fix this.”

Not only is there no urgency to fix the system, but Kemp is insistent that the system doesn’t need fixing. He has touted a new online tool for voters to check their personalized voting information and stands behind his aggressive efforts to combat voter fraud, even where Democrats say essentially none exists.


more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/30/50-000-missing-georgia-voter-registration-applications-nothing-to-see-here.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Fpolitics+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Politics%29

[CurtEastPoint]

1. This is my state, sadly. We should be rioting at the Capital building.

Those who attempted a protest at asshole Kemp's office were promptly arrested.
Jesus I hate these fucking republicans.

[babylonsister]

2. I live here, too, CurtEP, and I'm furious! nt

[CurtEastPoint]

3. I live in majority AA East Point and I voted early on Sunday

and was SO PLEASED to see lines out the door. I surely hope everyone votes. But this s**t has to stop. Has to STOP! These MFSOBS are ruining our state.

[babylonsister]

5. I will be voting Tuesday; will let you know what's going on here.

Probably slow as usual, unfortunately.

[Enthusiast]

15. I'm with you.

They can't win in a fair election and they know it.

[Scuba]

4. Crime of the Century.

[malthaussen]

6. Unfortunately, the century isn't very old.

I shudder to think of the crimes yet to come.

-- Mal

[SoapBox]

10. Well it's certainly criminal...

And, immoral.

The Right to Vote should be protected for all Americans.

What these Pukes and Baggers are trying to do, to stop citizens from casting their vote, should carrying a HIGH punishment (major jail time.)

[Tatiana]

7. Why do these rules not amount to a "poll tax?"

Seems like this may be considered a violation of the Voting Rights Act and a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise minority voters.

[Phlem]

8. But if you don't vote for Hillary we're

surely going to lose. you know it has nothing to do with anything else, poll tax, missing votes, none of that has any bearing on the outcome!

[newfie11]

9. Disgusting

When people can't even vote in America!
What the hell!

[valerief]

11. Same old same old. And people say there's no vote rigging.

[gademocrat7]

12. This is voter suppression.

I live here too. Voted yesterday. Good turnout. Had to wait to vote because the poll workers could not find me on the registration roll. But after several searches my name reappeared. First glitch in over 40 years of voting.

[C Moon]

13. HOLY SHIT!!!

[blkmusclmachine]

14. Must. Look. Forward.