Though Republicans continue claiming to be the party that stands for freedom and democracy, it is quite telling that they consistently represent just the opposite. This has been all too apparent when it comes to results of the midterm elections in Georgia and Florida—where they are fighting tooth and nail to prevent votes from being counted.
The fight to count every vote in Georgia escalated on Sunday, when gubernatorial candidate Democrat Stacey Abrams filed a lawsuit in order to get some counties in the state not to throw out their absentee and provisional ballots. Though it may seem like a losing strategy, the campaign believes that there are tens of thousands of provisional ballots outstanding that could force a runoff race between Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp. Abrams is right to fight for every vote. As Talking Points Memo reports, an additional 5,000 votes were added to the vote totals this weekend, and most of those were votes that were cast for Abrams. But Abrams faces an uphill battle, as the deadline for counties to certify their results is Tuesday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that 94 out of 159 counties have already certified their results, and 124 have already reported their provisional ballot totals. The lawsuit filed by Abrams would extend the deadline for certification of results by one day.
The lawsuit seeks to delay the deadline until Wednesday and require counties to count absentee ballots rejected for missing information and other inaccuracies. It also would require that counties accept provisional ballots that were rejected because the voters live in a different county.
There’s no question that Brian Kemp did everything he could to steal this election. From the million-plus purged voters from the rolls over several years while he was secretary of state, to his overseeing an election in which he was a candidate, from the malfunctioning and missing voting machines in predominately black counties to the complete lack of guidance to counties about counting and certifying results, this election is a sham and the opposite of democracy. And though Kemp and Republicans have already implored Abrams to concede because they don’t believe it’s necessary to count every vote, the gap continues to close a little each day.
It should seem shocking that this is happening in the U.S. in 2018. But it’s not. Brian Kemp and Republicans figured out long ago that cheating was an effective strategy, and they’ll do whatever it takes to win. But Georgia Democrats are standing firm that every vote must be counted. Even if every vote is counted, we still won’t have faith in this process—Kemp has made sure of that. But if ever there was a time to fight for the integrity of our electoral system and our democracy, that time is now. Let’s continue to put our support toward Stacey Abrams and hope for a runoff on December 4. This race is still too close to call, and Republicans should not get away with destroying all the democratic principles that are supposed to make this country so great. They’ve already stolen a presidential election in the South once before. If they continue stealing gubernatorial and Senate seats too, there may be no stopping them. #Counteveryvote