Black people make up 70% of Georgians with vote registrations "on hold" - Polidicks

https://www.theledger.com/news/20181009/voting-rights-become-flashpoint-in-georgia-governors-race ATLANTA — Marsha Appling-Nunez was showing the college students she teaches how to check online if they’re registered to vote when she made a troubling discovery. Despite being an active Georgia voter who had cast ballots in recent elections, she was no longer registered. She tried re-registering, but with about one month left before a November election that will decide a governor’s race and some competitive U.S. House races, Appling-Nunez’s application is one of over 53,000 sitting on hold with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office. And unlike Appling-Nunez, many people on that list — which is predominantly black, according to an analysis by The Associated Press — may not even know their voter registration has been held up. Kemp, who’s also the Republican candidate for governor, is in charge of elections and voter registration in Georgia. His Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Stacey Abrams, and voting rights advocacy groups charge that Kemp is systematically using his office to suppress votes and tilt the election, and that his policies disproportionately affect black and minority voters. Kemp denies it vehemently. But through a process that Kemp calls voter roll maintenance and his opponents call voter roll purges, Kemp’s office has cancelled over 1.4 million voter registrations since 2012. Nearly 670,000 registrations were cancelled in 2017 alone. Kemp, meanwhile, says Abrams and allied liberal activists are twisting his record of guarding Georgia elections against voter fraud. Two main policies overseen by Kemp have drawn criticism and legal challenges: Georgia’s “exact match” registration verification process and the mass cancellation of inactive voter registrations. Under the policy, information on voter applications must precisely match information on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration. Election officials can place non-matching applications on hold. An application could be held because of an entry error or a dropped hyphen in a last name, for example. An analysis of the records obtained by The Associated Press reveals racial disparity in the process. Georgia’s population is approximately 32 percent black, according to the U.S. Census, but the list of voter registrations on hold with Kemp’s office is nearly 70 percent black. Kemp’s office blamed that disparity on the New Georgia Project, a voter registration group founded by Abrams in 2013. Kemp accuses the organization of being sloppy in registering voters, and says they submitted inadequate forms for a batch of applicants that was predominantly black. His office has said the New Georgia Project used primarily paper forms and “did not adequately train canvassers to ensure legible, complete forms ....”

I continue to be staggered by how fucked up the voter registration system is in the US.

"Democracy! As long as it's on my side!"

States with a history of vote suppression used to have to run vote law by the feds until SCOTUS struck that down in 2013, on the basis that "the country has changed so much we don't need this anymore" A justice who grew up in rural Georgia, Clarence Thomas, formed part of the conservative majority that struck it down.

There was some shady vote stuff done on the day of the Alabama special election, hope the result of the election goes the same way with this one.

This is what a rigged election looks like.

Kemp got all his tactics from Kansas's Kris Kobach, who is also running for governor to replace the most hated governor of all time Sam Brownback. Trump wants him to lose so he can be put somewhere in his administration. All these articles feel like they were taken from 1960 and transplanted here.

voting in america is equal, it's just more equal for some than others

"Give me your tired, your sick and your poor......." "....So I can ignore them when they attempt to interact with the voting process!" This is from Animal Farm, right? I don't remember and it's hurting my head.

Considering how several polls show Abrams and Kemp tied I bet he's scared shitless that he could lose.

What the actual fuck.

North Dakota has the most progressive voting law in the nation, you don't even need to register, just show id and an address. Except for Native Americans. This year the state government rolled out voter law that specifically targets Native Americans as ones living on reservations technically don't have their own address. It was recently okay'd by the SCOTUS. Native Americans vote Democrat only less consistently than black people.

Paraphrasing, but yes.

Keep in mind, kemp is in charge of the election committee. No conflict of interest there.

Yeah, it's Orwell's critique of communism. 4 legs good, 2 legs bad, 1 leg for Middle-Eastern children due to Trump's drone strikes perfection

Its not fucked up if its intentional. There's so little evidence of the massive voter fraud that they disenfranchise millions over. if they aren't quoting a dodgy estimation, they just straight up lie about it and it gets voters to vote for them because it sounds right, even though it isn't. Then they systematically make it harder for minorities to vote.

Pardon the ignorance, but why is it necessary to register to vote in the first place?

so an illegal doesn't vote. also to give parties a list of who's voting.

For perspective, about 30% of Georgians are black, but naaah this definitely wasn't targeted voter suppression in any way.

Also stacy abrams is also black, which could pull even more weight towards the black community to go vote.

Unless the feds get on them Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina will be subject to severe vote suppression as to stay under Republican rule as black people continue to increase in demographics.

https://twitter.com/jaybookmanajc/status/1050450900987404288 The NAACP is also preparing a lawsuit to get an injunction to extend the registration deadline.

The U.S. is considered a flawed democracy.

It never was a democracy. It's a republic.

How can you run for a seat while you run the election? Is Kemp also in charge of counting ballots? Might as well let the candidate pick everyone’s vote.

It is not illegal so it happens, same with Kansas this year too. This is state level stuff so don't expect red states to fix it either

Americans keep saying this, and it really seems like they do not understand what the word 'republic' means in the first place. It just means 'not a monarchy', and has no bearing on being democratic or not. The two are not different things in the same category, they're completely separate things.

It's a democratic republic for fucks sake.

That's like saying, "I'm not a human, I'm a mammal!"

I'm not a human, I'm the president