Like the Fast & Furious franchise, it seems like the saga of voter suppression in Georgia wonโt end any time soon.
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CNN reports that more than 100,000 names will be removed from the stateโs voter registration rolls. On Friday, Georgiaโs Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released a statement saying this is an attempt to keep his officeโs files current by clearing out โineligible,โ โobsoleteโ and โoutdatedโ voters.
From CNN:
The effort to remove 101,789 names from Georgiaโs voter files marks the first time the state has conducted a โmajor cleaningโ since 2019, but Georgia regularly removes the voter files of convicted felons and the dead on a monthly basis, according to the statement.
โThe 101,789 obsolete voter files that will be removed include 67,286 voter files associated with a National Change of Address form submitted to the U.S. Postal Service; 34,227 voter files that had election mail returned to sender; and 276 that had no-contact with elections officials for at least five years,โ the statement said. โIn each of these cases, the individual had no contact with Georgiaโs elections officials in any way - either directly or through the Department of Driver Services - for two general elections.โ
Purges like this are nothing new in Georgia. According to The Los Angeles Times, Georgiaโs secretary of stateโs office has cancelled more than 1.4 million voter registrations between 2012 and 2018. But these efforts remain controversial for disproportionately rendering Black residents unable to vote.
Not only did Stacey Abrams and other voting rights activists take then-secretary of state and now current Gov. Brian Kemp both to task and to court over these previous purges, but the rampant (and just outright blatant) voter suppression on behalf of state Republicans even led to a Congressional investigation.
Gerald Griggs with the Atlanta branch of the NAACP told WSB-TV that he was worried that once again, the thousands of voters listed in the recent purge will be improperly removed from the stateโs registration list as they were in 2019.
โWe already have lawyers on standby, I am on standby, just in case we have to file litigation. So we are going to be watching this and we will respond if we believe voters have been disenfranchised,โ Griggs said.
Raffensperger, Kempโs successor, is standing by the stateโs practice of purging voters, saying that itโs โkey to ensuring the integrity of our elections.โ
Which, alright. If you say so, guy.
Iโm sure you remember that former President Donald Trump and other members of Georgiaโs Republican Party gave Raffensperger hell for acknowledging that Trump lost the state to Joe Biden.
Due to Trumpโs constant and baseless claims of widespread voter fraud within the state, Georgia swiftly passed a wildly restrictive voting law thatโas The Root has written about beforeโmainly suppresses Black voters, as Black voters in Georgia primarily vote for Democrats and are more likely to vote by mail.
If thatโs โintegrity,โ then I guess we should change the definition of the word.
According to the L.A. Times, those who were named in the most recent voter purge in Georgia have 40 days to respond in order to remain active voters.
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