The Truth About Those 1.5 Million Voters Kemp 'Purged' from GA Election Rolls Is Terrible for Dems
If you followed the Georgia gubernatorial election, you probably know that the Democrats have placed the onus for Stacey Abrams’ loss on the allegation that Brian Kemp, in his role as Georgia secretary of state, deliberately engaged in voter suppression.
In her preposterous non-concession concession speech on Friday, Abrams said that “democracy failed Georgia” and basically implied Kemp was behind it. At issue were several Georgia laws involving “exact match” voter registration and purging non-active voters from the rolls.
Almost anyone involved should have known this. However, if you’ve been on Twitter recently and have some Democrats on your feed, you probably have seen a few tweets like this:
1.5 million purged by Brian Kemp
53k registrations on hold
4.5 hour lines
214 polling places closed
Dems falsely accused of cyber crimes
Candidate overseeing own election
As @staceyabrams said, GA race was tainted by voter suppressionhttps://t.co/J5YD2QuiKY
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) November 16, 2018
Prominent Twitter user @AG_conservative was sick of seeing these sorts of complaints, so he put together a Twitter thread in which he addressed the accusations.
If no one else is going to respond to this, I guess I will have to. This list is intentionally misleading to give readers who don’t know the facts a false impression and thus undermine a legitimate election. Thread with the truth about each of these accusations: https://t.co/uwyTMeCp96
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
“If no one else is going to respond to this, I guess I will have to,” @AG_conservative wrote about Berman’s airing of grievances. “This list is intentionally misleading to give readers who don’t know the facts a false impression and thus undermine a legitimate election.”
1) The “1.5 million purged” is the total number of voters that have been removed from the rolls since 2012. Many have been removed because they moved, committed felonies, died etc.
The overwhelming majority of the rest were removed because of Georgia’s “Use it or lose it” law.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
And you may be surprised to find out who was responsible for that law. Or not.
1 cont) This law was passed in 1997 by A Dem legislature and a Dem Governor in Georgia. Similar laws have been upheld by SCOTUS. It requires the rolls to be updated by removing voters that have not voted for some time and do not respond to contact from the state. For GA: pic.twitter.com/FoM3xc8RhQ
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
1 Cont) Worth noting that the reason there was a large spike in 2017 was that the legally required maintenance was not done in 2015. 3 state officials oversee this effort to prevent major errors. None of them are Brian Kemp.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
As for the 53,000 registrations on hold, he pointed to the “exact match” law — something that was often dismissed or glossed over by the media.
2) “53K registrations on hold”
These registrations were labeled pending, but that occurred because there was some discrepancy between their registration and their files. All of these voters could still vote w/ normal ballots as long as they provided ID at the polling place. pic.twitter.com/hkugdfYYcP
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
As for the lines, well, welcome to Election Day. Of course, that’s something voters could have avoided and it had little to do with Kemp:
3) 4.5 Hour lines. Yes, there were long lines at some polling locations. That happens on election day. GA does have early voting options. Local officials manage those place and it has little to do with the Secretary of State.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
Ok. Let me further elaborate on this one. Most places had relatively short waiting times (varies by time of day). There was ONE polling location (Anniston Elementary School) in ONE county (Gwinnett) that had machines malfunction, which led to that wait. https://t.co/I4u8tlKTIH
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 18, 2018
The polling places that were closed also had a far less sinister explanation than Democrats are portraying:
4) “214 polling places closed”
This is the total number of polling places closed across the state since 2012. Those places were consolidated with other locations to save money. Those decisions were made by local County officials to save money, and have 0 to do with Kemp. pic.twitter.com/JzGLLDxyUv
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
Number five had to do with Kemp’s allegations that Democrats hacked into a voter system, made just two days before the election:
5) “Dems falsely accused of cyber crimes”
This one probably has the most basis for controversy, but the investigation is still pending. Dems hired cybersecurity experts to test a voter info page after a report from a voter about vulnerabilities. This raised red flags. pic.twitter.com/NG2pMc3dAA
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
I don’t think Kemp’s office handled the allegation in #5 well, especially given how close they were to the election, but almost all of the other examples were legitimate activities that had little to do with Kemp. Creation of a myth to suggest otherwise undermines our elections.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
In conclusion, @AG_conservative noted that none of this proved that the election was stolen.
To conclude: There is a high burden to justify claiming an election was stolen. Dems, included elected officials, have not met that burden and should be condemned for saying so without evidence. Stacey Abrams lost a legitimate election. Period.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) November 17, 2018
Sample response:
That doesn’t make it right
— Gabriel Migowski (@migowski) November 18, 2018
Yes, all the evidence and that apparently still doesn’t make it right. The only thing that would have made it right, one guesses, is if Stacey Abrams had won. If not, well, it was definitely voter suppression — and of the racist variety, no less.
This should be treated as a joke, but the media has been covering Abrams’ allegations as if there was a definite ring of truth behind them. There isn’t. All they have to do is look at the facts. We’ve presented them before, but this is the best adumbration of it that we’ve seen thus far.
The pretense that Gov.-elect Kemp did anything wrong is insulting to our intelligence and to the democratic process. It’s time for Democrats to admit that they lost, that it was a fair election and that their baseless, race-baiting innuendoes have poisoned the process.
Nothing less, at this point, will suffice.
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