On Friday, voting rights activist Stacey Abrams called on Georgia voters to promptly follow the instructions on postcards getting sent out by the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to confirm the information in certain registration files. Republicans have sometimes zealously pursued cancelling voter registrations that officials have determined to be in some way dubious, but legitimate voter registrations could be caught up in these so-called purges. Around the country, Republicans officials have promoted suppressive new election restrictions for the supposed sake of election security, but in fact, no systematic election integrity problems have been discovered.
On Twitter this Friday, Abrams commented as follows regarding the situation:
‘GEORGIA: Starting now, the Georgia Secretary of State is mailing some voters a postcard to confirm their voter registration status. If you receive a postcard, follow the instructions and return it right away. Questions or concerns? Call 886-OUR-VOTE’
GEORGIA: Starting now, the Georgia Secretary of State is mailing some voters a postcard to confirm their voter registration status. If you receive a postcard, follow the instructions and return it right away. Questions or concerns? Call 886-OUR-VOTE. #gapol pic.twitter.com/ksCmxgDxNl
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) August 6, 2021
Recently, Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp signed a raft of new election restrictions into law, including particularly troubling provisions like new mechanisms by which certain state officials can take over local election operations. Groups of Republican state legislators from both chambers of the Georgia state legislature have sent requests to the state election board for a review of the conducting of elections in Fulton County, and under the law that Kemp signed, “the state election board must mount a preliminary investigation and hold a hearing within 90 days of a request,” the Associated Press explains. If certain issues are uncovered during these proceedings, then the state election board could temporarily suspend local election officials and put their own temporary election administrator in place.
