The trappings of democracy
by Tom Sullivan
When states pass voting restrictions, the burden of providing additional proof of one's identity at the polls falls disproportionately on women. Political analysis typically highlights the attack on the franchise of minorities, students, and seniors. Missing the targeting of women is perhaps a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.
One prominent woman facing personal impact from Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp's repeated efforts to quash phantom voter fraud in his state is Stacey Abrams. She would be the first black woman elected governor in the United States if she can defeat her Republican opponent in her race for Georgia governor, Brian Kemp.
That may depend, writes Michelle Goldberg, on whether Kemp allows Abrams's supporters vote. (No, that's not a joke.) Four years ago, Kemp warned
Republican colleagues Abrams's New Georgia Project was "registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November.” Can't have that, now, can we?
The Associated Press reports Kemp has cancelled "over 1.4 million voter registrations since 2012. Nearly 670,000 registrations were cancelled in 2017 alone." Another 53,000 registrations are on hold in his office with his and Abrams's contest looming.
Goldberg continues:
In part, this is because of an “exact match” voter verification program that Georgia’s Republican-controlled government enacted last year, which flags registrations that have even minor discrepancies with official records, like a dropped hyphen in a last name. The A.P. reported that almost 70 percent of the registrations that are now on hold are for African-American voters. (Kemp has blamed sloppy work by the New Georgia Project for the holds. His office told The A.P. that voters whose registrations are in limbo can cast provisional ballots.)On Thursday, a coalition of civil rights groups sued the secretary of state, demanding cancellation of Kemp's "exact match" program. They allege the law serves no legitimate purpose and illegally targets minority voters.
Kemp’s apparent attempt to rig the Georgia election shows in microcosm how democracy in America is failing. Part of the reason this country is sliding into minority rule is structural — the Senate and the Electoral College both give disproportionate power to white rural voters. But the right is also gaming the system to try to stop changing demographics from changing the country's balance of political power.