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MARIETTA, Ga. – Wim Laven, Atlanta, United States, United States. Then he waited two hours in the Georgia sun; saw one person in the line treated for heat exhaustion; and watched a second collapse, receive help from paramedics, and refuse to be taken to the hospital – so he could remain in line and cast his ballot.
Mr. Laven is now a believer.
"This is an intentional effort," said Mr. Laven, who teaches political science at Kennesaw State University. "I can not imagine this is just pure incompetence. Everyone knew how to be serious about getting the vote. "
As Georgians cast their first in-person boobs on Monday in the state's fiercely contested gubernatorial election, what were the hypothetical fears about the state's inability to handle a record turnout for a nonpresidential election may be becoming reality.
Vote totals have increased almost 200 percent at the same point since the last gubernatorial election, according to the independent tracker Georgia Votes, but many worry the state has failed communities of likely Democratic residents of voting.
Some of the concerns about long-term complaints, such as reduced polling locations, confusion among election workers, and Since 2012, more than 200 local voting precincts have been closed across the state of Georgia, which amounts to about 8 percent of the state's total polling places.
But there are also allegations of intentional voting suppression, which has become a central issue in the governor's race. A recent report by The Associated Press, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is also the Republican nominee for governor, had more than 50,000 votes cast for the record of disproportionately black voters because of their problems with their voting registration information.
Mr. Kemp has denied allegations of intentional voting on Election Day, and they have the proper identification. Still, the back-and-forth has lost its nervousness and confusion among the supporters of Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominating gubernatorial, who is seeking to become the first female governor.
The Democratic Party of Georgia, through its spokesman, said its vote protection hotline.
"It's absolutely crazy," said Kimberly Edwards, 37, who said she had learned about the 2016 election. She found out when she could get knocked on her door. "We would not have known someone here."
Lines at one Cobb County polling place Wednesday night ballooned at a three-hour wait for early voting. We have a canvassing trip in Lilburn, Ga., Targeting unlikely midterm voters, a group of people who have been volunteering to help each other.
And on Monday, news about 40 black seniors Georgia's Jefferson County enlisted voting rights advocates, who say such actions could have a chilling effect.
The Black Voters Matter Fund, a nonparliamentary group that encourages civic engagement among African-Americans. There was singing, joyous singing, and a palpable sense of excitement, which was one of the leaders of the group.
The worker cited the appearance of partisanship, but the voting-rights group and its leaders were furious, saying the incident was a clear example of voting suppression.
"No racially discriminatory suppression of that right can be tolerated in Georgia or elsewhere," read a letter sent Wednesday by the NAACP Legal Defense Council. "In this contest, we are trying to protect you against intimidation and other conduct."
Cliff Albright, the co-founder of "Black Voters Matter," said the incident sparked memories of the Jim Crow South for some of the elderly pollsters.
"It seems incredible, but this is the daily reality in these counties," Mr. Albright said. "These are the connections and the circles of influence that a lot of people do not live in these counties understand. They do not understand the levels of intimidation. "
This fear – that state officials are intentionally attempting to undermine voting rights in the United States of America. The Georgia scenes also reignited about the Supreme Court's 2013 ruling in Shelby County Holder, which eliminated the need for a vote on the subject of voting in the United States.
"We've lost that pre-emptive mechanism, so we're left with case-by-case litigation to fight, and that can be slow," said Kristen Clarke, president of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. . "We're in a moment that requires a tremendous amount of vigilance to be able to vote for suppression efforts that are emanating around the country."
This is especially true in Georgia, which has been watched by voting rights advocates. One prominent group, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, reported recently that the state has removed 1.5 million voters from its rolls between 2012 and 2016, the number of the preceding four years, and that elections . The group said that it suggests that the process of purging voters is also necessary.
Mr. Kemp was a key proponent of the 2017 state law that requires an "exact match" between a vote and registration and his or her government documents, meaning a missing hyphen, or a difference between a married and a maiden name, can cause a registration to be suspended.
Mr. Kemp resisted calls to resign from his post as secretary of state during his gubernatorial run. He has always repeatedly asked me to say that Ms. Abrams said "the blue wave" should be "composed of those who are documented and undocumented." Abrams has noncitizens noncitizens should have their votes counted; Democrats are pledging to protect, if elected.
Georgians about it, "Mr. Kemp tweeted Wednesday," I do not know what's worse. "Either way, Stacey Abrams is too extreme for Georgia."
Ms. Abrams' campaign to the vote to mobilize voters, but Greg Shufeldt, a professor at Butler University who studies elections, says the state has a serious and lasting problem.
Georgia ranks 43rd out of 50 in election integrity, according to Mr. Shufeldt's measures.
That ranking is emblematic of almost a decade of fights between election rights and Mr. Kemp. Questions have long swirled around Mr. Kemp's office about issues.
To judge in September, one of Georgia 's request to force to ballot papers in the 2018 election. Still, in doing so, the judge wrote that "state election officials had buried their heads in the sand," about matters surrounding the state's election machinery.
Mr. Kemp's office of "excessive rejection" of absentee ballots in Gwinnett County, which is electorally important, widely diverse, and beginning to liberalize the state's demographics change.
An analysis by the Atlanta Journal Constitution found that Gwinnett County had 7.5 percent of absentee bales, while less than 2 percent had been rejected statewide.
"This is 2018 and I'm just not sure why," said Robert Thompson, who works in information technology and lives in Cobb County outside Atlanta. Mr. Thompson had to contact a hotline from the American Civil Liberties Union because his absentee ballot application kept being rejected. It ended up being used as a spamming device.
"People just give up because they do not have time for this," Mr. Thompson said.
Georgia is one of a few states that uses electronic-only voting machines. Election experts have frequently warned that such systems leave the state without recourse in the event of a severe election hacking or tampering.
Mr. Kemp nonetheless remains steadfast that Georgia has no voting rights issues. In 2016, it is an attempt to "subvert the Constitution to achieve the goal of federalizing elections under the guise of security."
He was one of few state election officials in America to reject federal assistance.
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