Parties brace for war over voter [40K] registrations in Ga. Senate race

Georgia's tight Senate race could be headed for the courtroom after voters head to the ballot box.

A state judge ruled earlier this week against civil rights groups seeking to force the Georgia secretary of State to account for roughly 40,000 voter registrations that were filed but allegedly haven't shown up on the voting rolls. Those voters could have a big impact on the tight open seat contest between Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue.

That initial ruling raises the possibility of further post-election legal action — and is likely to increase the number of potential provisional ballots, the type of votes that get fought over in court in close elections.

Civil rights groups are vowing to fight to make sure every new voter they helped register gets their vote counted after next Tuesday. And both parties are quietly preparing for chaos in close races like the current deadlocked battle, where the results could be fought out in the courts as well as in a runoff.

At issue are a large chunk of the more than 100,000 new voters registered by the state NAACP and the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan group focused on registering African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic voters.

The legal wrangling is officially nonpartisan, as was the voter registration drive, but both have clear racial and political overtones. The head of the New Georgia Project is Georgia state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D), an African-American and close friend of Nunn’s, while Georgia’s secretary of State is white Republican Brian Kemp.

“The only recourse the judge has allowed for these voters is provisional ballots and it's our mission to make sure every provisional ballot cast is counted,” Abrams told The Hill. “My focus as head of the New Georgia Project is making sure that every provisional vote that's cast that's valid is counted and if it means going to court to do that we will certainly do that.”

Others agree that legal fights could be in the offing, both because of these voters and the large number of other newly registered voters in the state. Newly registered voters are more likely to have problems with their registrations and have to vote provisionally more often. As both Nunn and Perdue aim for an outright victory in the close race, every vote will count.

“There will be some sort of tussle if it's close,” said one Georgia Democrat. “The conditions make it more likely there will be increased numbers of provisional ballots.

Georgia’s politics have often broken down on racial lines, and part of the reason both Nunn and gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter (D) are so competitive this year is the fast growth in the state’s minority populations — and Democrats’ attempts to capitalize on that demographic shift by registering and turning out new voters. And while Kemp and Abrams have sought to avoid discussing the case in overtly racial or political terms, others haven’t been as quiet.

“A Republican-appointed judge has backed the Republican Secretary of State to deny the right to vote to a largely African American and Latino population. It is outrageous that Georgians’ rights are being ignored,” Francys Johnson, president of the Georgia Conference of the NAACP, said in a statement following Judge Christopher Brasher’s decision earlier this week.

Abrams and Kemp have been increasingly at odds during the process. Kemp launched an investigation into whether the New Georgia Project was committing voter fraud earlier this year, though that investigation produced just 51 potential forgeries out of the more than 80,000 applications the group submitted. Abrams and her allies believe his office has been dragging its feet on adding the newly registered voters to the rolls because they lean Democratic.

“I don't see any urgency from him and from his office,” Abrams says. “Registration is nonpartisan. Voting is very partisan, and if a party decides they can't market themselves to that group that's their problem, and it's a failure of their politics and their policies.”

Kemp denies that the voters aren’t on the rolls in the first place, calling the lawsuit “totally frivolous.”

“The claim that there are 40,000 missing or unprocessed voter registration applications is absolutely false,” he said in a statement. “The counties have processed all of the voter registration applications that they received for the General Election.”

His office downplays any worries about an unusually large number of provisional ballots.

“Any valid voter registration application that came into either our office or the counties has been processed and they will be able to vote in this election, and anybody who's not on the rolls can certainly cast a provisional ballot and will be able to verify any missing information,” secretary of State spokesman Jared Thomas told The Hill. “We're anticipating a very smooth election.”

Neither Nunn’s nor Perdue’s campaigns want to talk about the potential of a recount or other legal challenges, though both Democrats and Republicans have been quietly preparing for months to deal with problems at the polls. Democrats have been especially focused on the issue — the Democratic National Committee’s Voter Expansion Project has been working since early this year to ensure that their base voters wouldn’t have trouble voting.

Nunn and Perdue have been deadlocked in public polling, while Carter has been within reach of Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) too. In both races, if neither candidate reaches 50 percent outright because of third parties they will go to a runoff, further complicating the potential for legal action as fights over provisional ballots would eat into the month allotted for the governor’s race and nine weeks for the Senate race.

“Provisional ballots are just wrought with peril,” one Georgia Democrat told The Hill.

Republicans are also keeping a close eye on the court wrangling, though it’ll likely be Democrats and civil rights groups who have to do the heavy lifting to get their voters counted.

“Litigation is always something you fear in terms of the outcome of an election. We had it in the presidential race in 2000,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) told The Hill last week, before the judge’s decision came out. “You've obviously got a couple of matters out there in Georgia where there's the potential for a lawsuit. Attorneys don't need a reason to sue, they need a client to pay. You just try and make sure everything clears up as best as it can.”

My thoughts after reading this:

I first heard about this GA registration issue last night when it was brought up by liberal pundit Mara Liasson on Fox New Special Report Roundtable (around the time this story was filed at The Hill).

Going on the offensive, Dems file lawsuit saying massive voter registration of potential Dem/Nunn/Carter voters being frustrated by Republican Sec. of State, thus voters being denied their right to vote.

This claim has been denied but the issue will be championed by the MSM and dilutes the news about massive Democrat voter fraud going on nationally (along with machines changing votes from R to D).

40,000 provisional votes!!? Sounds like they think a high enough number would let enough through - and the vote is expected to be close.

How's this going to play out - Dem voters taking more than one stroll into the voting booth at different precincts?

Conservative voters in Georgia (in ALL states) need to GET TO THE POLLS and VOTE -- stop these Obama attempts to overwhelm the system and steal elections.

I saw in yesterday’s news.....group who had analyzed jury decliners in Maryland/Virginia....listing of 40,000. They declined because they weren’t US citizens. The jury duty pool....comes directly from voter registration listings.

Big episode brewing, and will hit the fan by early spring of 2015. You can expect some judge to order the states involved to re-register the state correctly, or require voter ID. As for the 40,000? IF they vote this week....and they are determined to be fraudulent....it’s a $15,000 fine for each.

That’s $600 million coming back to the state apparatus in Maryland and Virginia....if they could pay it.

This will also charge up the other forty-eight states to review jury decliners and individually bring each single up for the $15,000 fine.

What the Democrats are saying about blacks, and what they want everyone to swallow:

The truth is, photo IDs stop vote fraud, and the Democrats cheat on a massive scale.

Vote Fraud is Treason.

I have been getting a robocall each night on my LL from people like Huckabee, Pat Boone, and many others, you name it. All reminding me to vote. I think the GOP has a good turnout effort going, frankly.

The crux of this whole new voter registration problem is that Democrats are highly pi$$ed Georgia has a voter ID law requiring a picture ID, and they are seeking ways around it. They are flabbergasted because they cannot control the elections process like they would be able to in CA, MA, and all those other blue strongholds. So, signing up a 100,000 ineligible voters (so they claim) is one.

What stories like this and these national liberal pundits (yes, Mara is as partisan as they come) fail to note is that Kemp and his office have already determined that several thousand of these ‘new registrations’ were invalid, fraudulent, duplicates or otherwise ineligible.

Follow existing law; if a voter challenges eligibility, voting precinct - whatever, let them file and individual provisional ballot that will be fully examined beyond a quick electronic vote that will get mixed in with the tally. IT IS EXACTLY WHY THEY DO NOT WANT PROVISIONAL BALLOT OPTION. Snakes usually like tall grass.

Take a digital photo of each voter as they sign in to vote.
Have the voter sign a card with their (supposed) name and address. Affix the photo to the card.
It’s no hardship for the voter to pick up the card after voting. Or mail a copy to them if they are in too much of a rush.
The card is proof, only, that the person claimed a certain identity for voting.
This would not eliminate all fraud, but might discourage some.
It should not be used as ID for any other purposes.
The digital pic can be used as evidence to prosecute fraud.
The pic can also be run through a facial recognition program to check for people voting at more than one place.

“I have been getting a robocall each night on my LL from people like Huckabee, Pat Boone, . . .”

I’ve been inundated with these calls as well. However, a robocall from the huckster or the 80 year old crooner does not motivate me to do anything except hang up the phone. The idiotic vacuous replies, written by 20 year olds, to letters and telephone calls to my GOP congress critter and US Senator don’t motivate me either to hold my nose and vote to elect or reelect collaborators.

Sadly it has reached the point where I am motivated each election cycle to vote against the candidate I perceive will steal more from me than the alternative. I will go to the polls Tuesday and cast votes unenthusiastically against the candidates with the “D” brand. While my votes will be recorded as having voted for the “R” brand candidates, in my own mind I will not have voted “for” anyone.

I will then go home and pray for my family and our nation.

I hear ya. But contrasting to 2012, I hardly got ANY calls like this at all. And they haven’t all been from Huck or Pat, either. Very many different people and viewpoints, but all NOT DEMOCRAT. They are trying harder, and they are trying across more than just one demographic group.

While I voted much the same as you did, primarily voted NOT DEMOCRAT, I wasn’t happy with say, Perdue or even some of the other choices. But I KNEW the alternative was much worse.

Frankly, I want Obama’s complicity in the destruction of this country to be utterly repudiated by the voters who will throw out his lackeys in Congress. I want his last two years to be a time where NOTHING he wants done gets done. He may do some stuff he wants via EO, but it isn’t law, and it isn’t forever.

I voted last week - not one Democrat.

Civil rights groups are vowing to fight to make sure every new voter they helped register gets their vote counted after next Tuesday

TRANSLATION:

~~Civil rights groups~~ Democratic affiliated groups funded by the National Democratic Party are vowing to fight to make sure ~~every new voter~~ every illegal alien and imaginary person they ~~helped register~~ fraudulently registered gets their vote counted after next Tuesday

There fixed it.

> “Conservative voters in Georgia (in ALL states) need to GET TO THE POLLS and VOTE — stop these Obama attempts to overwhelm the system and steal elections.”

Is this another case of a GOPe candidate failing to move Conservatives to the polls and therefore is in danger of losing?

It seems to me the problem is the GOPe and not Conservatives.

You’ve well expressed the dilemma of conservatives that has been pounded out on FR for years now.

But for every voter that opts to take your path, there is one to two Conservatives that will stay home. That is the problem and that is why Romney lost in 2012. More than 6 million blue collar Conservatives sat out the 2012 election because they could not stand the idea of Romney being anywhere near the White House.

Now the question is whose fault is it?

Romney’s fault because he is/was a 2-faced liar that could not be trusted and had a track record of socialized healthcare, promotion of homosexuality and illegal amnesty. To ask a Conservative to support that was asking them to throw themselves into a pit of fire against their conscience.

So it’s the GOPe’s fault.

The dilemma is if the GOP takes the Senate, even by razor thin margins with the bare minimum number of deats, the GOPe will pat themselves on the back and congratulation themselves. The GOP should be running away with this election but instead it comes down to persuading people such as yourself to ‘hold your nose’ and it is always the same.

You lose no matter what you do.

I remember a couple or a few weeks ago, in the morning, on the local Fox affilate, there was a 30 second bite from the plaintiffs, followed by a brief statement from the SoS stating nonsense, read on behalf by the Fox affiliate.

I thought this went away.

It’s probably going to be used as rhetoric and a red herring to stir up their base.

I got to get to the voting station. There’s a great gyro place near the buckhead library(our voting station), I’m planning to walk down there on lunch.

This will also charge up the other forty-eight states to review jury decliners and individually bring each single up for the $15,000 fine.
****************************
Juries in Texas are selected from the database of licensed drivers. ....Why should a person have to be a registered voter to serve on a jury? Along that line, why should only licensed drivers be the jury database? ....Many people don’t drive or register to vote. .....I guess it’s just convenient.

“Take a digital photo of each voter as they sign in to vote.
Have the voter sign a card with their (supposed) name and address. Affix the photo to the card....”
*********************************************************************************************************
Add capturing an index finger print to the list and making voter fraud a FELONY and then you have a solid means of preventing most (in person) voter fraud along with the ability to successfully prosecute folks STUPID enough to attempt this form of fraud.

Of course the ‘RATS will continue mail in voter fraud where they can.

I suppose after screaming on cable, in print, on the net and on network news that the GOP stole the election by denying minorities a vote in this mid-term (and then having it proven false) that there will be plenty of “remember how they stole the 2014 election from the Dems” leading up to the 2016 election.

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