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Several Georgia voters detailed their polling place issues at a press conference organized by the Stacey Abrams campaign. Abrams is in a too-close-to-call race against Republican Brian Kemp to become governor of the peach state.
Kemp, who resigned as the Secretary of State yesterday and claimed “victory” in the governor’s race, has been accused of rampant voter suppression and deliberant, pointed neglect of certain polling stations with broken and out dated machines. He himself had trouble voting on election day because of an old machine.
Earlier today, several Georgia voters detailed their negative experiences at polling stations.
Their stories straight from the Abrams campaign:
Nedghie Adrien
Nedghie is from DeKalb County and attends graduate school in Boston, so she requested an absentee ballot early. She never received her ballot, and when she called the local elections office to follow up, she was told that DeKalb did not mail out thousands of absentee ballots in time for votes to count. The post office never confirmed that the ballot was mailed, and as of today, 3 days after Election Day, the ballot still hasn’t shown up.
Cazembe Jackson
Cazembe lives in East Point and is registered to vote in Fulton County. He updated his address at least twice before Election Day. On Election Day, he went to his polling place, and they denied him a ballot, saying that he was registered at a different place, and he had to drive 30 minutes to his old address in order to vote. Two people in his household who changed their addresses in the exact same way were allowed to vote at the first location, but he was not.
Tate Delgado
Tate Delgado is from Gwinnett County and is an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California. He applied for an absentee ballot, but his application was rejected due to a signature mismatch. However, he was only notified at his home address in Georgia, and by the time that mail was redirected to his correct address, he did not have time to address the mismatch issue. He was unable to cast his ballot, and flew back from California today specifically to make his voice heard.
Surabhi Beriwal
Surabhi is a new Georgia voter who moved here this past summer. She registered by paper and went to vote early in Fulton. The poll workers said they couldn’t find her in the system, and the poll manager also couldn’t find her—but the Secretary of State’s My Voter Page said she was registered. The poll manager said she could vote provisionally, or provide different photo ID. She ultimately was able to present a passport card and vote successfully.
Cassandra Hollis
Cassandra’s mother was not allowed to cast a regular ballot because the system claimed she had voted early, but she was bed-ridden when the system said she voted in-person and could not have voted. Instead, she was forced to cast a provisional ballot, which has not yet been confirmed to have counted.
Premature Certification
As Abrams fights to become the first Black female governor in the history of the United States, the legal challenges her campaign and other organizations have lobbed at Kemp are starting to gain traction. It was revealed today that at least 12 counties in Georgia certified without including provisional ballots. This is significant because the amount of votes to trigger a run-off or re-count between Abrams and Kemp is in the tens of thousands. That is well within the range of the number of ballots still left uncounted between absentee, provisional, military, and “emergency.”
This is an on-going midterm elections story that will be updated.
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