When talking about the fight for voting rights, it is impossible not to mention Stacey Abrams. Abrams has built a national reputation by fighting and advocating for voting rights for all. Abrams served for eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives with seven as Democratic Leader. In 2018, Abrams became the Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia. While Abrams did not win, her campaign was memorable because she was not only the first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party, but she won more votes than any other Democrat in Georgia’s history.
Georgia’s election in 2018 was notable for other reasons, however. In the weeks before the election, Republican Brian Kemp who was Abram’s contender and served as Georgia’s chief elections officer was repeatedly criticized for actions taken by his office. His office had authorized purging more than a million names from the state’s voter rolls between 2012 and 2016. Several complaints and lawsuits alleged that he was suppressing minority voters to prevent Abrams from winning. It was also concerning that Kemp was chief elections officer but was also a candidate in the election. Several voting and civil rights groups called for Kemp to resign from his positions as chief election officer since it was a serious conflict of interest. The Associated Press reported that 53,000 voter registrations, 70% of which were from black applicants, were being held by Kemp’s office for failing to clear an “exact match” process. A number of voters reported problems when they tried to vote such as a state database making an error in a person’s name and registration confusion. Georgia’s election infrastructure also left much to be desired. Prior to the 2016 election, Kemp turned down the Department of Homeland Security’s offer to provide election and cybersecurity assistance stating that the move would give the federal government too much power over the state government. However, in 2015 the state accidentally shared Social Security numbers and personal information of 6 million voters and political groups and media outlets. Kemp said the leak was due to a clerical error. When concerns were raised again prior to the 2018 election, Kemp responded by claiming that Democrats were attempting to hack into Georgia’s voter system without any evidence. Mounting evidence of Georgia’s electoral problems spurred people into action.
After Stacey Abrams ended her campaign, a lawsuit was filed to overturn Georgia’s controversial election system that was alleged to violate the constitutional rights of voters of color. The suit was filed by Fair Fight Action, an organization founded by Abrams and dedicated to fighting voter suppression. The lawsuit was mainly aimed at Kemp who did not resign from his position as Georgia’s chief elections officer until two days after the election. The lawsuit was 66-pages and highlighted various voting issues including voter purges, registration holdups, Election Day problems that occurred in majority minority precincts, and issues with absentee and provisional ballots. “In the 2018 Election, Georgia citizens tried to exercise their constitutional rights but were denied the ability to elect their leaders,” the lawsuit noted. A number of reforms were proposed by the plaintiffs such as stopping purges of infrequent voters and placing Georgia back under preclearance requirements. Fixing Georgia’s election system was a pressing issue since the 2020 presidential election was coming up and it was predicted that Georgia would play a key role in deciding the winner.
Fair Fight has launched several initiatives designed to ensure every American has a vote. Fair Fight 2020 was an initiative to fund and train voter protection teams in 20 battleground states. Fair Fight is also training grassroot advocates to help them lobby for new election laws. In addition to Fair Fight Action, Abrams had founded multiple other organizations. In 2019, she founded Fair Count to ensure accuracy in the 2020 Census and greater participation in civic engagement. She founded the Southern Economic Advancement Project, a public policy initiative to build equity in the South. Abrams is also involved with a myriad of projects and organizations. She serves as a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she is a board member of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, the Center for American Progress, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, and the Marguerite Casey Foundation.
Currently, Stacey Abrams is running for Georgia’s Governor once again. She is on the ballot in the Democratic primary on May 24, 2022. Hopefully, this time she will be successful and continue her fight for voting rights as Georgia’s Governor!
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