11.01.18
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Voting Block<br />
STATES DEVISE DEVIOUS WAYS TO PREVENT MINORITIES FROM VOTING<br />
BY ALEX HENDERSON<br />
If Stacey Abrams had been around in the 1960s and entered Lester Maddox’s restaurant<br />
in Atlanta, she probably wouldn’t have been served.<br />
Maddox, who served as governor of Georgia from 1967-1971, was a segregationist<br />
Democrat who proudly supported Jim Crow laws and defied the Civil Rights Act<br />
of 1964 by refusing to serve black customers in his Atlanta restaurant.<br />
But much has changed in Georgia since then, and the 44-year-old Abrams stands<br />
a very good chance of becoming Georgia’s first female African-American governor<br />
— that is, if GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp doesn’t succeed in disenfranchising<br />
black voters in his state. Channeling the ghost of Maddox, Kemp, Georgia’s<br />
secretary of state, has suspended the voter registration of 53,000 Georgia residents<br />
— about 70 percent of whom happen to be African American.<br />
Kemp’s office has canceled more than 1.4 million voter registrations through voter<br />
roll purges since 2012, The Associated Press has reported. That includes 670,000<br />
canceled registrations last year alone, according to splinternews.com.<br />
Last month, Kemp was sued by a coalition of civil rights groups over the state’s<br />
“exact match” voting law of 2017, the primary tool that Kemp and state lawmakers<br />
have used to keep people of color off voter rolls by targeting minor discrepancies<br />
of personal information in existing registries, according to splinternews. Abrams,<br />
who could become the country’s first female black governor, has called on Kemp to<br />
resign.<br />
The New York Times reported that the 53,000 suspended voters would be able to<br />
cast ballots is they can show a proper photo ID that matches their registration.<br />
Abrams feared uncertainty would keep new voters away from the polls.<br />
“They get a confusing letter saying there’s something wrong with their registration,”<br />
she told The Times. “And more than likely they will sit out this election. The<br />
miasma of fear that is created through voter suppression is as much about terrifying<br />
people about trying to vote as it is about actually blocking their ability to do so.”<br />
Kemp’s effort to defeat Abrams by keeping her likely supporters away from the<br />
polls is so egregious and underhanded that the Rev. Al Sharpton has asserted that<br />
“Jim Crow would blush” over his actions.<br />
CONTINUED ON PAGE 11<br />
<strong>11.01.18</strong> | PASADENA WEEKLY 9