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A video promoting early voting was released by the Office of Secretary of State of Georgia Brian Kemp two years ago showing children showing how to vote early and what documents are needed. The video, produced in six languages and still on the Secretary of State's website, shows a white boy who arrives at his polling station, presents his photo ID and passes the vote. The black girl running for office does not have proper identification and is rejected.
The video – showing a white man able to vote while a black woman is denied – holds the attention amid accusations of repression of voters in Georgia, as well as a so-called conflict of interest in the race of governors.
Election officials in Georgia have suspended the registration of more than 50,000 people, mostly black, according to a policy requiring that personal registration information correspond exactly to social security or driver's license data. The man responsible for this system and the fairness of all elections in Georgia is Republican Secretary of State Brain Kemp, the governor's candidate against Democrat Stacey Abrams, a woman who is trying to become the country's first black governor.
The video bears a striking resemblance to Abrams' claims that Kemp is attempting to repress minority and female voting through his official power. His campaign called for his resignation, or at least his disqualification, as Secretary of State, in order to put an end to the alleged persistent conflict of interest related to the supervision of his own election.
"We know since 2016 that the exact matching system has a disproportionate effect on people of color and on women," Abrams told CNN on Sunday. State of the Union.
In the "exact match" system, minor discrepancies in names or other personal information, such as inconsistent hyphens, misspellings, abbreviated nicknames or typos, could constitute an additional barrier to the creation of additional documents to prove the identity of a person on polling day or the constitution of a draft ballot paper. Although Georgia's population represents only 32 percent of the black population, nearly 70 percent of Kemp's 53,000 pending registrations are black people, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
"It's part of a behavior where [Kemp] tries to tip the scales in his favor or in favor of his party, "said Abrams in an interview with CNN.
Kemp refused both to resign or to recuse himself, repelling Abrams and the "left-wing radicals" for claiming that he was trying to suppress the vote of Democrats, minorities and women.
"While outside agitators denigrate this office and attack us falsely, we kept our heads low and remained focused on securing secure, accessible and fair elections for all voters," Kemp's campaign said in a statement. a statement. "The fact is that it has never been easier to register to vote and participate in the electoral process in Georgia."
Kemp also touted the record number of state registrations and pointed out that the 53,000 people with pending registrations can still vote with provisional ballots.
Since then, various civil rights groups have sued Kemp over the "exact match" policy, claiming that it was another form of voter repression and that It constituted a manifest conflict of interests.
"This is a constraint for our democratic system when less than a month before an election, which could give birth to the first female African-American governor in the history of our country, we are witnessing this type of suppression scheme. voters tempted by a state official, whose candidacy governance produces an irremediable conflict of interest, "said NAACP President and CEO, Derrick Johnson, in a statement.
A new poll released Wednesday by the Reuters / Ipsos / University of Virginia Policy Center indicates that Kemp and Abrams are virtually tied, just weeks away from election day. Kemp led Abrams by 1 point, with 47 to 46, in the margin of error.
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