Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s voter-registration allegations represent a Republican Party split in regard to minority voters, a political observer said.
“It’s controversial,” Kennesaw State University political science professor Kerwin Swint said about Kemp’s charges against the New Georgia Project. “It’s all about winning in November.”
Swint, a former Republican strategist, said the Kemp effort represents “a short-term strategy…to affect the electorate to give your candidates the best chance possible. The concern is that it looks like you’re in a way against minorities.”
Kemp’s office at a special meeting of the Georgia Election Board Wednesday backed away from earlier voter-registration-fraud allegations against Democratic Rep. Stacey Abrams’ New Georgia Project, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The Secretary of State’s office said that out of 85,000 voter registration forms submitted, just 25 were suspicious, a 0.06 percentage, the AJC said.
The case shows a short term vs. long term division among Republicans about reaching out to black, women and Hispanic voters, Swint said. One group, looking at changing demographics, believe Republicans need to reach out to minorities. Others, he said, “think they don’t need to do that or don’t need to do that yet. They think they can win elections on the margins and registering their own constituency.”
Chris Harvey, chief investigator of the secretary of state’s office, softened earlier comments about the New Georgia Project, saying at the meeting that he had not seen “anything that leaves me to believe it is a goal to commit voter registration fraud” by the organization or its leaders, the AJC reported.
Kemp’s move sparked criticism from liberal commentators and civil rights groups that he is seeking to suppress minority votes. “Brian Kemp is under fire for being partisan,” Swint said.
While Abrams has called the voter registration drive nonpartisan, Swint said, “it’s an obvious attempt to help Democrats.”
Abrams’ group at a press conference before the election board meeting called the Kemp case “a witch hunt,” and said more than 51,000 voter registration applications remain unprocessed while the handful of ballots with possible problems draw attention. The voter registration deadline is Oct. 6.
The New Georgia Project itself flagged problems with the applications, the AJC reported, adding that state law requires that those forms be submitted to country registrars and forwarded for screening by the secretary of state’s office.
New jobless news fuels governor’s race: The economic debate driving the Georgia governor’s race likely will grow more heated with a new report that the state’s unemployment rate rose in August.
Last month’s rate increased to 8.1 percent over a revised 7.7 percent in July, the Georgia Department of Labor reported, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The August number had been expected to drop with the rehiring of workers laid off for the summer, the newspaper said.
Georgia’s July figures were the second worst in the nation. The August state rankings are to be released Friday, the AJC said.
Democratic governor’s candidate Jason Carter has made the state’s unemployment a main weapon in his campaign to unseat Republican Nathan Deal. Deal has emphasized an increase in state jobs and national media citing Georgia as the best place to do business.
The August numbers “give more fuel to Jason Carter,” Swint said. “It’s more observable, verifiable data that Jason Carter can point to.”
But, “with the evidence of increasing job growth, Nathan Deal has some bragging rights too,” Swint said. “But the unemployment is what everybody points to.”
Nunn campaign seeks volunteers: Democrat Michelle Nunn’s U.S. Senate campaign is seeking volunteers to staff phone banks and conduct door-to-door visits to get out the vote, according to an email sent from deputy campaign manager Jessica Kirkwood to prospective volunteers.
“This is THE most important thing you can do to support this campaign,” the email said. “We need to get out the vote and we do that by making phone calls, knocking on doors and making sure people are registered to vote,” the email said.
Volunteers were sought for “virtual phone bank nights” through September, the email said, with October slots to be filled later.
Meanwhile, a scheduled Nunn trip to San Francisco Thursday night for a fund-raiser with Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein drew a GOP barb, the AJC said.
GOP spokesman Leslie She’d said that “hobnobbing with California liberals illustrates just how out of touch” Nunn is, the AJC reported.
