Civil Rights Leaders Accuse Secretary Of State Of Voter Suppression

September 11th, 2014

The Georgia State Conference of the NAACP and several other civil rights organizations are accusing Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp of trying to suppress voter rights. The organizations delivered a letter to Kemp today saying a subpoena issued by his office to a voter registration group is an attempt to keep minorities from voting.

The New Georgia Project, which was founded by State House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, (D-Atlanta), calls itself nonpartisan. The group said it’s worked lawfully since January to sign up about 85,000 Georgians, particularly minorities.

Reverend Timothy McDonald is founder of the African American Ministers Leadership Council. He said the subpoena and an investigation into the organization is an attempt to maintain the state’s current leadership, despite the state’s changing demographics.

“That’s why the New Georgia Project is under attack, is because the mere fact that they’re registering 85,000 people has the great potential to change the makeup of our state.”

Ebenezer Baptist Church Senior Pastor Raphael Warnock is a spokesman for the New Georgia Project. He says the group has done nothing wrong.

“This Secretary of state has decided to penalize us, to besmirch the reputation of this grassroots operation for doing what the law requires. The only conclusion is that it’s illegal to have a voting rights campaign.”

Warnock says the bigger issue is why fewer than half of the residents the group has registered have yet to make it onto the state’s voter rolls.

Georgia State NAACP President Francys Johnson said, “Do not delay in processing those registration applications. We fully expect that this secretary of state would do his job. If not, we will find a judge that will make him do it.”

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Kemp told WABE the investigation began after his office received complaints from several counties. Kemp denied any attempts to suppress votes. Warnock says only about two dozen of the voter registration applications the group has turned in are under investigation.

Kemp said he does not know the number of applications in question yet. But he said whether it’s one, two dozen or more applications that are problematic, voter fraud is a felony under Georgia law.

“25 felonies is a lot to me in the secretary of state’s office. We have zero tolerance for fraud. I don’t think in other law enforcement areas people would say it’s okay to commit one or two frauds but let’s don’t do anything until it reaches 40 or 50.”

WABE contacted the secretary of state’s office Thursday to respond to the civil rights leaders allegations but did not receive a response by deadline. According to the subpoena, The New Georgia Project has until September 16 to turn over all of its correspondence, documents and canvass sheets.

Civil rights leaders say they’re hoping to sit down with Kemp and resolve the situation before having to go to court over the matter.