Since Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brian Kemp, is also a candidate for governor, it should be a given that he would recuse himself from overseeing the elections process. Yet he continues to do so, all while challenging Democrat Stacey Abrams, who may become Georgia’s first black female governor.
After weeks of scandal and outrage over thousands of unprocessed registrations and voter purges that affected most heavily black communities in Georgia, and even arrests of people working to register black voters, yet another story of possible voter suppression has emerged.
The New York Times reports that:
‘Fears of voter suppression were again ignited in Georgia on Thursday after state Democratic officials said that more than 4,700 vote-by-mail applications were missing in DeKalb County, one of Georgia’s most populous and liberal-leaning regions.
‘County officials acknowledged the missing applications in a phone conversation this week with Democratic voter protection officials, and pledged to call the thousands of voters to inform them of the error, according to multiple people familiar with the conversation.’
UPDATE: Of the 4,700 ballot requests, the county board has only been able to find 48 of them. While this is unfortunate, our priority is that every eligible vote is cast and counted. If you have not received your ballot please call the voter protection hotline at 1-888-730-5816.
— Georgia Democrat (@GeorgiaDemocrat) October 25, 2018
However, the election board in DeKalb County did not appear to be quite as helpful.
‘A spokesman for the DeKalb County elections board would not confirm the details of the call. Sam Tillman, the chairman of the board, added that “there is no evidence that there are any missing or lost absentee ballot request forms.” He said of a list of 4,700 names provided by the Democratic officials, he could confirm that the county had only received 48 of the requests.’
‘"The Democratic Party of Georgia… We have USPS scans that show 4,700 ballot applications were delivered, but the county board has only been able to find 48 of them.”https://t.co/EbiWUZl5Xj
— RynheartTheReluctant (@TheRynheart) October 25, 2018
However, there is evidence of those forms. In fact, ballots are scanned by the U.S. Post Office, and 4,700 ballots have been scanned that have not yet been located.
Featured image via Flickr by Keith Ivey under a Creative Commons license
