“Let me be clear: What happened on November 6th was anything but a free and fair election.” With those words, defeated Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams began a fund-raising email attacking Gov.-elect Brian Kemp and ended with a pitch for money to “restore democracy” in Georgia. But there’s more.
A lawsuit filed against the current secretary of state and the state Elections Board by a group led by Abrams’ former campaign manager seeks to force “large scale reforms” upon Georgia’s election system.
It alleges constitutional, civil rights and voting rights violations, as well as breaches of federal election laws, and asks the federal court to declare that the state’s election process violates both Georgians’ fundamental right to vote and a federal ban on racial discrimination. It further asks that the presiding judge (who has not been named) take jurisdiction over Georgia elections so that no policy or practice may be enacted without court approval. Abrams in the past has specifically attacked “purging” of voters who haven’t voted within the time specified by state law.
The Kemp campaign maintained that, as secretary of state until he resigned on Nov. 8, Kemp followed the U.S. Supreme Court mandate of Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute where the court affirmed the procedures in the National Voter Registration Act. The court concluded that the law “simply forbids the use of nonvoting as the sole criterion for removing a registrant”—something that the state of Ohio did not do. Rather,” nonvoting is treated as evidence of non-residency, but is not itself sufficient to result in removal from the voter roll”.
Justice Samuel Alito went on to say that, “[n]ot only are states allowed to remove registrants who satisfy these requirements, but federal law makes this removal mandatory.”
The Husted opinion is binding on Georgia and every other state.
