Republicans Target Georgia Voter Registration Drive With Questionable Charges of Fraud
Republicans Target Georgia Voter Registration Drive With Questionable Charges of Fraud
Evan Walker-Wells
October 17, 2014
A recent study finds that if 60 percent of unregistered African Americans and other people of color in the Peach State registered to vote, their votes would likely be enough to sway statewide elections. So GOP leaders are pushing back.
While states across the country including Georgia have passed laws imposing new requirements on voters, the nonpartisan New Georgia Project has fought back against the forces of voter suppression with a massive voter registration effort.
But the effort has faced backlash in the form of a controversial fraud investigation by Georgia's Republican secretary of state. It's also embroiled in a lawsuit over the state's alleged failure to process more than 40,000 new voter registrations.
NGP began in March 2013 with 60 canvassers focusing on enrolling Georgians for health care under the Affordable Care Act. It turned its focus to voter registration as conversation after conversation made clear the need to empower disadvantaged voters, said NGP founder and Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams (D-Atlanta).
NGP estimates that around 800,000 people of color, voters between the ages of 18 and 29, and unmarried women—what the group calls the "Rising American Electorate"—were unregistered to vote in Georgia at the beginning of this year. Since March 16, NGP has hired canvassers and supported 12 partner organizations that say they have registered 120,000 new voters.
"The goal is to really create an infrastructure that allows this emerging majority to become not only the largest part of the population, but the political power in the state," Abrams said.
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http://prospect.org/article/republicans-target-georgia-voter-registration-drive-questionable-charges-fraud
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