Stacey Abrams claims Kemp, Raffensperger 'outsourced voter purging' to White supremacist groups
Georgia saw record levels of turnout in early voting for the 2022 midterm elections
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams insisted Monday that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s voting law is allowing White supremacists to purge voters while appearing on MSNBC’s "The ReidOut."
Abrams, who infamously refused to concede her race against Kemp in 2018, previewed the challenges she faces in her upcoming rematch on Tuesday. Among the issues she described, a key factor was Kemp’s election security law that he put into place in 2021.
Abrams has frequently attacked this law as "voter suppression" and went even further to claim to host Joy Reid that "voter purging" was "outsourced" to White supremacist groups.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger outsourced voter purging. That’s what they did. They franchised it to White supremacist groups and to hard right-wing groups to give them the opportunity to do what they no longer can do because of the lawsuits they faced from my organizations and others, regarding their voter purging practices. What we know is that in the state of Georgia, Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger are hard at work denying access to the right to vote," Abrams said.
Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams appeared on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" on Monday. (MSNBC)
In October, Abrams lost her lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Georgia's election practices.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She also pushed a previously debunked claim that the Georgia law forbids voters waiting in line at the polls from being given water and claimed it was voter suppression.
"And starting tomorrow, we’re going to have voting where if you’re standing in line in Georgia, it’s 82 degrees in Atlanta [today]. Imagine if you’re down in south Georgia where it’s a lot hotter. You can’t get water, and if those lines are four, five, six hours long, if you happen to spill your bottle, you better not get out of line because no one can give you water. That’s the kind of voter suppression that Brian Kemp has always specialized in. Targeting with almost surgical precision the most vulnerable voters and hoping no one notices," Abrams claimed.
Democratic Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams. (Marcus Ingram/Getty Images)
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The law actually allows poll workers to provide self-service water from an unattended receptacle within 150 feet of a polling place. Similar laws are also in place in New York where there is a restriction on passing out food and water unless it is under $1 in value and no identification on who supplied it.
Despite Abrams and Reid’s insistence that Georgia’s election laws area form of voter suppression, Georgia once again saw record levels of early voter turnout. Though, they denied that there is any connection between voter suppression and higher turnout.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will face off against Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, on Tuesday. (AP )
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"But I note … that it’s largely, you know, substantially more Republicans," Reid said. "They are not the ones who have long lines. They get to breeze right through. They are not the ones who have suppression."
Abrams agreed, "There’s no correlation there. Voter suppression is about blocking or impeding certain types of voters from participating in elections."