Georgia Primary: Republican Voter Supression Backfired

That Republican- engineered shitshow that was Georgia's primary election last week was doubtless intended as a dry run for Republicans in November. The obstacles they put in the way of voting included purging voter rolls, a new and overly complicated Republican- contracted computer system that caused long lines, especially in Democratic precincts, and a bollixed effort to get absentee ballots to all who requested them. Sounds pretty impressive (also, repressive).  So, in retrospect, how did this latest attempt at voter suppression work out for Republicans?

Democrats set a new turnout record for primary voting in last week’s Georgia vote, soaring past 1 million voters to outpace Republicans during an election plagued by significant obstacles at polling sites.

The latest results, still being tallied as absentee ballots are counted, show Democratic turnout in Georgia surpassed 1,060,851 – the previous high-mark set during the 2008 presidential primary when then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton. [snip]

Georgia Democrats pointed to the high numbers as another sign of voter enthusiasm headed into the November election. Joe Biden aims to be the first Democratic presidential contender to carry Georgia since 1992, and state Democrats are racing to flip two U.S. Senate seats and a suburban U.S. House seat. 

The turnout numbers soared mainly due to a surge in absentee ballots after an expansion of mail-in voting ordered by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, amid coronavirus restrictions. A review showed those mail-in ballots were roughly split between Democrats and Republicans. [snip]

The increase in Democratic votes comes after recent demographic trends that encourage  party leaders. An AJC analysis found that more than 320,000 new voters registered in Georgia since 2019, and many are younger and racially diverse – blocs of voters who tend to favor Democrats.

And top state Democrats hope to channel frustration over the federal and state coronavirus response, as well as the outrage over police brutality that’s sparked nationwide protests for racial justice, into votes in November. (our emphasis)

As with their spectacularly unsuccessful attempts to suppress Democratic votes in a state supreme court election Wisconsin in April, Republicans efforts to keep people from voting is pissing them off to such an extent that they'll stay in line to vote for hours, even during a pandemic.

There's voter enthusiasm out there;  it's enthusiasm to get Republicans at every level out of office so that we can have some semblance of sanity and humanity in our public life again.  Those are powerful motivators that Republicans haven't yet figured out how to squelch.

Keep calm, and vote.

(Image: Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

The Intentional Georgia Voting Shambles

The state that brought us a rigged election controlled by a Trumper who just happened to be running in that same election is at it again:

Thousands of voters in Georgia participating in Tuesday’s primary elections have experienced major delays, with reports of long lines and defective voting machines across the state, including in Atlanta, the state’s majority-Black, most populous city.

Georgia is one of five states holding primary elections Tuesday, along with North Dakota, South Dakota, South Carolina and Nevada. States continue to hold in-person elections amid the coronavirus pandemic, even as voting rights activists and several Democrats in Congress push for more federal investment in mail-in voting.

Georgia is shaping up to be a battleground state, not just in the presidential election, but in the race for the two Senate seats currently held by Republicans.  The long lines at polling places, new machines that didn't work, and poorly trained poll workers seemed to mysteriously occur at predominantly black areas around Atlanta, Savannah and Columbus.

Meanwhile, Georgia's Republican crackers are tussling about the best way to suppress the vote, either through the methods employed above and/or denying absentee balloting in the midst of a pandemic:

Georgia, in particular, has been roiled by a fight over access to voting during the pandemic. In April, the state’s Republican House leader, David Ralston, publicly denounced the Republican secretary of state for sending absentee ballots to registered voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary, which was postponed from its original May 19 date due to the pandemic. Ralston claimed mail-in voting is ”devastating to Republicans.”

That's saying the quiet part out loud, not that they're hiding anything any more.

As Steve Benen points out,

... [T]his was a disaster that many saw coming: Georgia's 2018 elections were a mess, as then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R), administering his own gubernatorial election, kicked hundreds of thousands of voters off the ballot rolls, leading to widespread breakdowns and dysfunction.

In the cycle's wake, Kemp, in his capacity as governor, set out to replace all of the Georgia's voting machines, hiring an electronic-voting-machine company that hired Kemp's former campaign manager as a lobbyist. The company had never tackled a project of this scale, but it nevertheless tried to roll out the largest and fastest installation of elections equipment in American history.

And Georgia crackers aren't alone in attempting this heist:

... Georgia's Republican-led state government helped create the mess; Republican-appointed justices on the U.S. Supreme Court helped pave the way for the mess by gutting the Voting Rights Act; the U.S. Justice Department hasn't shown any interest in protecting the franchise since 2017; and Donald Trump's White House is actively involved in an aggressive campaign to make voting more difficult in the hopes that it will increase the odds of the president holding onto power.

The good news is that voters, for the most part, weren't buckling to these suppression tactics. Shining a light on the abuses now helps, but expecting Republicans to make it easier for people to vote just isn't in their DNA.  Organizations like Stacy Abrams' Fair Fight aims to counter Republican sabotage in Georgia and around the country, and they deserve our support.

Meanwhile, the Republican Georgia Secretary of State has begun an investigation of the foul- ups, which should be completed, if past is prologue, by =checks notes=  November 4.