During the 2018 election, one of the most closely watched and highly anticipated races was for Governor of Georgia, between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp, then Secretary of State for Georgia. Kemp, refusing step down from oversight of his own election, proceeded to purge over 500,000 voters from the rolls, more than 10% of the final 3.9 M who voted that year, predominately in poorer and minority-majority communities. Allegations were laid, lawsuits filed, and court orders issued. When the dust had settled, Stacey Abrams had lost by just 2%, the election had been successfully stolen.
Now, a mere year from the next presidential election, and an increasingly desperate political climate for the Republican party, Georgian Republicans are ready for the next round of voter purges. As Slate reports, "This newest purge targets those who have not voted for several years—ostensibly because they have moved out of state—and could cause 330,000 voter registrations to be canceled."
Clearly Republicans in these elections are not acting in good faith, despite their protestations of trying to "safeguard" the vote with these suppressive techniques. As usual, these efforts to distort the democratic process and suppress participation, is wildly against desires of the decidedly pro-democracy American people:
Removing people from registration lists if they have not recently voted or confirmed their registration. Oppose: 62%
The American people want voting to be easy. They don't want politicians putting barriers between the citizenry and the ballot box. Brian Kemp and his ilk have clearly shown no desire to listen to the courts, or the people when it comes to this issue, because he knows that without cheating he can't win! Corrupt and unrepresentative politicians such as these are the perfect co-conspirators of extremely powerful special interest groups in capturing the political apparatus for their own profit, and power. If we are to bring democratic representation back to America, it will take a broad and enduring movement of people, demanding change and putting pressure on the powerful. We must register voters, and demand our representatives pass legislation to protect our right to vote, with automatic or same day registration, to make election day a national holiday, to give the formerly incarcerated the right to vote and to require paper ballots. These structural reforms are vital safeguards to a thriving democracy, and only through enduring socio-political-economic movements like DSOT can we hope to achieve our goals. Join us every Tuesday, in growing solidarity and power until we take back our democracy from amoral special interests, and greedy politicians: Don't Shop on Tuesdays!
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