The 2018 election was a squeaker for Georgia Republicans, with Democrat Stacey Abrams nearly eking out a win. Without a concerted voter suppression effort from then-Secretary of State and now-Governor Brian Kemp, she might have made it. That voter suppression started in 2017, when Kemp's office purged 534,199 voters from the rolls, the largest single voter purge ever. Since that worked, Georgia Republicans are going to do it again.
This round targets about 330,000 registered voters who haven't participated in elections in the past few years, though this time around, the state will have to notify them that it's happening. The state is going to send notifications beginning in the next few weeks to the last known address of the inactive voters, giving them 30 days to respond. Voters can either use a provided postage-paid registration form to keep their registration active, or reregister online, mail a form, or vote on Nov. 5. The state will remove the names of those who don't respond in December.
Luckily, Abrams and Fair Fight Action, the group she founded to fight voter suppression, are on the case. "Voters should not lose their right to vote simply because they have decided not to express that right in recent elections," said Lauren Groh-Wargo, the CEO of Fair Fight Action. "Having a long history of voter suppression, the Georgia secretary of state's office has a responsibility to guarantee that not a single voter is wrongly included on the purge list."
The organization is already suing the state over "voter registration cancellations, precinct closures, long lines, malfunctioning voting equipment and disqualified ballots" that disproportionately penalized people of color in the 2018 election. The suit alleges that the balloting "was so flawed that it prevented thousands of voters from being counted, especially African Americans."
"There were a lot of people showing up on Election Day and not finding themselves on the rolls and not understanding why," Myrna Pérez, the director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said. "When mistakes are made, we feel it on Election Day. That's the last place you want to feel it." Particularly in 2020, with two U.S. Senate seats and the presidential election on the line.