Stacey Abrams files federal lawsuit detailing Georgia’s extensive voter suppression in 2018

The federal lawsuit filed by thwarted Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and a coalition of mostly female domestic workers on Tuesday portrays Georgia’s 2018 election as a veritable horror show of intentionally anti-democratic and often racist voter suppression tactics — possibly unmatched since Ohio’s 2004 presidential election. At every stage of the voter registration, ballot distribution, ballot validation and vote-counting process, a system of rules and state laws overseen by the governor-elect, Republican Brian Kemp — the top state election official until his resignation after Election Day—and State Election Board failed to help every eligible voter participate and cast a ballot that would be counted, the 65-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court enumerated in great detail. This complaint describes the serious and unconstitutional flaws in Georgia’s elections process — flaws that exist today.” Whether validating voter registrations, using intentionally outdated state records to reject more current voter information to disqualify their ballots, purging voters under a 1990s state law intended to target voters who voted for president, cutting early voting, closing or moving polling places in minority communities, having too few backup provisional ballots in place, or numerous other technicalities that added up to systemic rejection of ballots and widespread disenfranchisement, the suit said Kemp did everything he could to stop a free and fair election—including deploying intentionally racist tactics. It seeks to have the federal courts put the state’s entire election system under federal “jurisdiction” or control, by blocking the most exclusionary laws and practices, and then lists 13 ways that the state should administer voter registration, training officials, uniformly running elections, ensuring backup safeguards are in place, publicly disclosing results and audits — and even replacing the state’s voting machines, among the oldest deployed in America today.