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As the crisis of potential voter eradication worsened in Georgia, the Democratic candidate for governorship accused her opponent of trying to deprive people of color and women of their rights by creating a "miasma of fear" around of the vote.
Stacey Abrams, who, if elected, would become the first female African-American governor of all states, running against Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
A lawsuit filed Thursday by human rights groups accused Kemp of trying to deprive more than 50,000 voters, 80% of whom were minority voters, Suspending voters from registration lists if records held by different state agencies revealed a slight name is a hyphen, spelled or spaced.
Any voter whose records reveal such a discrepancy would not be registered either, but should take subjective measures to convince the election officials of his or her identity, thus risking not having his vote counted.
As Secretary of State, Mr. Kemp is responsible for the administration of election laws, including, in this case, of his own choice.
Abrams has again called on Kemp to step down as Secretary of State. Kemp's application of the so-called "exact match" law passed last year by the Republican legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Nathan Deal will hit minority voters harder. she declared.
"What about low-proportion voters in these small communities who end up speaking up and who say," It's my turn to vote, "only to find out that they're deprived of the right to vote? "Abrams said.
"They do not know they can go to the polls. They receive a confusing letter telling them that there is something wrong with their registration and that they are likely to stay out of this election.
"The miasm of fear created by the repression of voters is as much about terrifying people to try to vote as to block their ability to do so."
The margin in the last two races at the governorship in Georgia was about 200,000 votes. An investigation by the Associated Press revealed that the Kemp office had canceled more than 1.4 million voter registrations since 2012, including nearly 670,000 in 2017 alone.
The population of Georgia is black at around 32%, according to the United States Census. The list of voters waiting at Kemp's office is black at nearly 70 percent, AP reported.
Kemp's office rejected concerns about the disenfranchisement of the law on exact correspondence. Kemp accused a voter registration project conducted in 2013 by Abrams of neglecting voter registration and not "adequately training solicitors to ensure readable and complete forms."
As a minority leader in the House of Representatives of Georgia, Abrams filed a lawsuit against Kemp in 2016 to challenge the regulation of the postal vote, which was not a state law at the time. time. A federal judge ruled that Kemp had wrongfully canceled 33,000 registrations.
Abrams said on Sunday that Kemp "knew" that the exact match system would lead to the loss of the right to vote.
"I would say that we know since 2016 that the exact matching system has a disproportionate effect on people of color and women," said Abrams. "He was sued for this particular problem.
"He was forced to reinstate 33,000 illegally canceled registrations. And he turned around and asked the state legislature to pass a law allowing him to make the same mistake again.
"When you know that what you are doing is going to have a disproportionate effect on people of color and women and you are doing it anyway, it undermines the public's trust in the system, which is a problem."
CNN said Kemp had declined an invitation to participate in the show.
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