U.S : Still fighting for our voting rights.

GOP officials in Georgia are making a brazen attempt to disenfranchise Black voters.

Send the Randolph County Board of Elections a message and demand they vote down this Jim Crow era plan.

TAKE ACTION

Dear friend.

Georgia Republicans are trying to manipulate the rules to keep Black voters from making Stacey Abrams the first Black woman elected Governor in this country.¹

Last week, a “handpicked” GOP operative with ties to GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp pushed a proposal to eliminate three-quarters of the polling locations in majority Black Randolph County. As he has done for the last eight years as the Georgia Secretary of State, Kemp is using the law and his position overseeing elections as a weapon to keep Black folks from voting and controlling their own communities.

The Georgia GOP has designed this proposal to exploit the political process and rig the election in their favor because they know that if Black voters turn out as expected for the November election, Stacey Abrams has a real shot at winning. We cannot let this brazen attack on our freedom to vote to happen.

The Randolph County Board of Elections is voting this Friday on a plan that would disenfranchise thousands of Black voters. Send them a message now and demand they protect Black polling places.

The poll closings in Randolph County include a precinct in which 97% of the voters are Black, which will force Black residents, many of whom have no car or access to public transit, to travel as much as 30 miles round trip to reach the nearest polling place. Randolph County has a history of explicitly racist voting practices like this, and was previously required to obtain federal approval before changing election processes until the Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013 by the Supreme Court. Without the protection of the VRA, the Georgia GOP is free push their voter suppression tactics.

Poll closures in Georgia, like the one Randolph County is about to vote on, are becoming a disturbing trend. Ten other Georgia counties have already closed most of their polling places, and all of those counties have large black populations.² The common thread behind all of these poll closures has been an election consultant named Mike Malone - a GOP operative “handpicked” by Brian Kemp to close polls throughout George. Like Trump and Kansas Secretary of State of Kris Kobach, Brian Kemp has used his position to wage war on Black voters and our fundamental freedom to vote.

In his crusade to attack our suffrage, Kemp has engaged in mass voter purges, removing hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls, and enabling state officials to single out Black voters in targeted purges. He canceled or suspended 35,000 voter registrations using a notoriously racist program where Black voters were eight times more likely than whites to have their registration canceled.³ He launched a frivolous investigation into the New Georgia Project's - which was founded by Stacey Abrams - efforts to register minority voters despite no evidence of fraud. He used the probe to harass and intimidate voting rights advocates and ultimately refused to register 40,000 would-be voters who had signed up through the drive.^{5 6} And his most egregious assault on our voting rights came last year when he recommended that fourteen canvassers be charged with a felony facing up to ten years in prison and a one-hundred thousand dollar fine for incorrectly filling out a few voter registration forms.

In a closed door meeting with other Republicans, Kemp gave a nakedly racist explanation for his voter suppression campaign : “Registering all these minority voters that are out there … if they can do that, they can win these elections.”

Closing polling places in Black areas is a transparently racist tactic in line with literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation and harassment by law enforcement agents during the Jim Crow era. We cannot allow Brian Kemp, and his stooges like Mike Malone, to disenfranchise us.

Demand the Randolph County Board of Elections vote down any proposal to close polling stations.

Until justice is real,

Brandi, Rashad, Arisha, Jade, Evan, Johnny, Future, Corina, Chad, Mary, Saréya, Eesha, Angela, Sam and the rest of the Color Of Change team

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References :

1. "Brian Kemp’s Bid for Governor Depends on Erasing the Black Vote in Georgia," Slate, August 17, 2018 https://act.colorofchange.org/go/84507?t=8&akid=17020%2E1942551%2EglPGrD
2. "Brian Kemp’s Bid for Governor Depends on Erasing the Black Vote in Georgia," Slate, August 17, 2018 https://act.colorofchange.org/go/84507?t=10&akid=17020%2E1942551%2EglPGrD
3. "Georgia secretary of state fighting accusations of disenfranchising minority voters," McClatchy DC, October 07, 2016 https://act.colorofchange.org/go/84508?t=12&akid=17020%2E1942551%2EglPGrD
4. "Battle over voter registrations set stage for Georgia governor’s race," Politically Georgia, August 17, 2018 https://act.colorofchange.org/go/84509?t=14&akid=17020%2E1942551%2EglPGrD
5. "Register Minority Voters in Georgia, Go to Jail," The New Republic, May 05, 2015 https://act.colorofchange.org/go/84510?t=16&akid=17020%2E1942551%2EglPGrD
6. "40,000 Voter Registrations Have Gone Missing in Georgia, and They're Probably Lost Forever," The New Republic, November 03, 2014 https://act.colorofchange.org/go/84511?t=18&akid=17020%2E1942551%2EglPGrD

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Color Of Change is building a movement to elevate the voices of Black folks and our allies, and win real social and political change. Help keep our movement strong.