Georgia organizers respond to voter fraud task force by forming a league of voter empowerment
Georgia organizers respond to voter fraud task force by forming a league of voter empowerment
May 15, 2020 1:22pm by Anoa Changa, Prism, Daily Kos
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1945292
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With less than a month until the Georgia primary, voting rights organizations and lawyers have formed a voter empowerment task force to protect voting rights and ensure voters can access the ballot without fear. Intended to encourage voters and ease potential confusion, the voter empowerment task force is a direct response to the absentee ballot fraud task force formed last month by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Voter empowerment task force member organizations include Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, Black Voters Matter Fund, Fair Fight Action, the New Georgia Project Action, and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda.
After a chorus of national and state Republican elected officials pushed a false narrative of increased voter fraud with expanding vote-by-mail, last month Raffensperger announced the formation of an absentee ballot fraud task force comprising primarily white conservative prosecutors to address a problem that is virtually nonexistent in Georgia and across the nation. Indeed, a review of State Election Board transcripts by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed only 34 cases involving absentee ballots in the past five years, many of which challenged county election staff’s handling of absentee ballots.
As of Thursday, May 14, the secretary of state’s office reported that nearly 1.4 million absentee ballots have been requested for the June 9 election. County boards of elections have received 278,643 absentee ballots so far. In 2016, only 37,231 absentee ballots were counted for the primary.
In remarks made during a Thursday afternoon press conference, members of the voter empowerment task force expressed concern that the Raffensperger task force could target “innocent mistakes” such as possible signature match issues on absentee ballots for fraud investigations.
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