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Judge Rules Against Stacey Abrams’ Group Contesting 2018 Georgia Gubernatorial Election

Judge Rules Against Stacey Abrams’ Group Contesting 2018 Georgia Gubernatorial Election

“Georgia’s automatic voter registration policy and significant recent increases in African American voter registration are not the signs of a state that is suppressing voters”

Despite her insistence to the contrary, Stacey Abrams did indeed lose her 2018 bid to become governor of Georgia. A federal judge ruled in favor of the Peach State, stating “Although Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the VRA [Voting Rights Act of 1965].”

Abrams became a national joke—the “real” governor of Georgia™—for her insistence that she didn’t lose to the actual governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp.  With everyone from Joe “I am the Democratic Party” Biden to Elizabeth Warren to Robert Francis O’Rourke chirping that Abrams would be the “real” winner if only there weren’t such voter suppression, Democrats couldn’t wait to leap on her delusional nonsense.

So convinced was she that she had actually won, or would have won if only all of her voters had been able to vote, that her organization Fair Fight, filed against the state, claiming all sorts of impediments to Abrams voters.

The AP reports:

A federal judge on Friday found that Georgia election practices challenged by a group associated with Democrat Stacey Abrams do not violate the constitutional rights of voters, ruling in favor of the state on all remaining issues in a lawsuit filed nearly four years ago.

“Although Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the VRA,” U.S. District Judge Steve Jones in Atlanta wrote, referring to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He detailed his reasoning in a 288-page order.

The lawsuit was filed in November 2018, just weeks after Abrams narrowly lost the governor’s race to Republican Brian Kemp. Throughout that contest, Abrams had accused Kemp, then secretary of state, of using his position as the state’s top elections official to promote voter suppression. Kemp vehemently denied the allegations.

. . . . Georgia officials have created a landscape where it’s “harder to register, harder to stay registered and ultimately harder to vote,” Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, an attorney for Fair Fight and the other plaintiffs, said during her closing argument in late June. The barriers to voting aren’t caused by inevitable human errors but instead result from “choices designed to keep certain people from voting,” she said.

She highlighted testimony from voters who had trouble registering or casting their ballots, voters who shared their stories because they wanted the court to understand what they faced.

Josh Belinfante, a lawyer for state election officials, said in his closing that Georgia’s elections are constitutional and don’t violate the Voting Rights Act. Georgia’s automatic voter registration policy and significant recent increases in African American voter registration are not the signs of a state that is suppressing voters, he argued.

Despite her early claims that 18,000 voters (all voting for her, of course) were “disenfranchised,” Fair Fight found “very few who were unable to cast a ballot.”

The AP continues:

While Fair Fight collected stories from more than 3,000 voters, they found very few who were unable to cast a ballot and none during the 2020 election, Belinfante noted. Instead, he said, the evidence showed problems were generally resolved quickly once state officials were contacted.

Fair Fight’s goal was to get Democrats elected and to make Georgia a blue state, and the organization used a false narrative of voter suppression to motivate people to turn out for its cause, Belinfante said.

“You have to decide has the case matched the rhetoric,” Belinfante told Jones. “The answer is no.”

Things aren’t looking good for Abrams in her rematch against Kemp this year, either. Will more lawsuits follow, or will she shift her focus to becoming “president by 2040“?

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Comments

Judge rules against Stacey Abrams? Darn it. I think I’ll cry all night long.

Beto/Adams

Adams/ beto

Match made in Heaven

Just as a matter of trend, the US doesn’t seem to prefer obese politicians. While some are overweight, the most prominent “bowling ball a la Abrams” to win on the big stage was probably William Howard Taft.

The Gentle Grizzly | October 1, 2022 at 8:46 pm

She’s a political Kardashian, or Gabor sister: famous for being famous.

Fat, ignorant and stupid is no way to go through life.

Not that I don’t approve of the dismissal but what a bone-headed comment from state elections counsel. Automatic registration of voters is not a indicative of a system that supports legitimate voters. On the contrary, to the extant if creates an insecure system and furthers the potential for fraud, it undermines legitimate votes and so tends to suppress not further voting rights.

    c0cac0la in reply to Concise. | October 1, 2022 at 10:47 pm

    It’s arguable that in a secret ballot system, the most important security feature of the system is the verification of legitimate voters via the voter rolls. Because once the ballots leave the hands of the voter, there’s no way the ballot can be traced back to determine the legitimacy of a vote.

    Automatic registration of voters and not cleaning out voter rolls is precisely where all the potential for voter fraud comes in. Which coincidentally are the two items that Democrats are adamant about proliferating through our election systems.

    Milhouse in reply to Concise. | October 2, 2022 at 6:24 am

    The statement isn’t bone-headed, it’s the very opposite. It should be obvious that a state that automatically registers people getting a driver’s license unless they say they don’t want to, is not suppressing voters. That’s not a value judgment, it’s just plain logic. He didn’t say this is a good thing; he just pointed out that it’s what is actually happening.

      MrPeabody in reply to Milhouse. | October 2, 2022 at 9:30 am

      Fur sure, Millhouse.

      Concise in reply to Milhouse. | October 2, 2022 at 11:34 am

      If you believe that establishing a system that furthers systemic fraud actually supports voters, then I guess you’re right, I think it’s bone-headed.

        healthguyfsu in reply to Concise. | October 2, 2022 at 1:49 pm

        What Milhouse meant is that it is an effective takedown of Abrams’ ridiculous claims.

          Concise in reply to healthguyfsu. | October 2, 2022 at 4:31 pm

          Wow, you mean the state counsel was actually arguing against Abrams’ claims? Who knew? Thanks for explaining. My point is that the system the state counsel is touting is a system that enables systemic fraud. A simple point but apparently beyond the capacities of commenters here. But feel free to add additional facile observations.

          henrybowman in reply to healthguyfsu. | October 2, 2022 at 8:45 pm

          It’s you who seem to be missing the point. Stating the fact (not “touting a system”) isn’t a value judgment on whether or not it is a good thing. It’s simply an effective refutation of Abram’s claim.

          It’s like confronting a Holocaust denier with validated tallies of dead bodies is not cheerleading in favor of dead bodies.

          Concise in reply to healthguyfsu. | October 2, 2022 at 10:20 pm

          What? Please stop with the idiotic analogies, and an idiotic Nazi related analogy at that. My point is that the system of automatic registration is defended by counsel as a benefit. Good luck if Georgia ever tries to eliminate this nonsense automatic registration in the future. Democrats, probably Abrams, will then argue that they’re disenfranchising voters and probably will quote elections counsel. Not sure how to make that any clearer, even to commenters on this site.

          Milhouse in reply to healthguyfsu. | October 3, 2022 at 9:32 am

          My point is that the system of automatic registration is defended by counsel as a benefit.

          Only in your imagination. Counsel merely pointed out that it is inconsistent with voter suppression.

          Concise in reply to healthguyfsu. | October 3, 2022 at 1:34 pm

          It’s more than obvious why he said it. Do you somehow feel smarter for pointing out the obvious? I think it’s less obvious that he ends up voicing support for a system that promotes fraud and thus undermines legitimate votes. Don’t expect you to understand. I’ll try to be more superficial for you in the future.

          Milhouse in reply to healthguyfsu. | October 3, 2022 at 8:26 pm

          You idiot, he did not voice support for it. It was not his place to express an opinion on it. His opinions are not of any interest to the court, so he didn’t give any. He merely pointed out, as a matter of pure logic, that this fact is inconsistent with the plaintiff’s allegations.

      And I would venture most, if not all states; offer non-driving ID’s

The rotund Abrams needs to start singing, it’s over!

Do you white supremacist racists remember back when challenging elections was treason??

Funny old times we live in eh.

    BierceAmbrose in reply to mailman. | October 2, 2022 at 6:59 pm

    I thought it was insurrection. Both, maybe?

      Otto Kringelein in reply to BierceAmbrose. | October 3, 2022 at 3:42 pm

      Treason, insurrection, and a direct threat against Our Democracy™

      Perhaps Republicans can convene a Select Investigative Committee to investigate the democrats shenanigans against our Republic.

Idi Amin’s daughter, the vile Abrams, displays her father’s narcissism, megalomania, imperial arrogance and totalitarian ethos.

She will never give it up because that is all she’s got. Hard to believe, but she used to be a romance novel writer. Did her books sell?

Too funny fighting election results is only a crime when Conservatives do it.

Fantasywriter | October 2, 2022 at 1:23 pm

The downside of this story is that Kemp and Raffensperger made sure all the fraud-friendly rules–including the actual exclusion of signature verification–were in place to defeat Trump and the senators. They only tightened the rules for their own upcoming elections, AFTER ease of cheating had had the desired effects in 2020.

The state of Georgia, the City of Atlanta and Cobb County Ga. should sue Major League Baseball and its Commissioner for defamation based upon their false statements regarding the Election Integrity Act of 2021, seeking damages of $100 Million to compensate for the loss of revenue from MLB moving the All-Star Game and Draft from Atlanta to Denver based upon the decision rendered in FAIR FIGHT ACTION, INC. v BRAD RAFFENSPERGER. Discovery would be epic

The gubernatorial race – the race to see which goober is governor

What? Please stop with the idiotic analogies, and an idiotic Nazi related analogy at that. My point is that the system of automatic registration is defended by counsel as a benefit. Good luck if Georgia ever tries to eliminate this nonsense automatic registration in the future. Democrats, probably Abrams, will then argue that they’re disenfranchising voters and probably will quote elections counsel. Not sure how to make that any clearer, even to commenters on this site.

    Milhouse in reply to Concise. | October 3, 2022 at 9:52 am

    My point is that the system of automatic registration is defended by counsel as a benefit.

    No, it is not. It is merely cited by counsel as a fact.

Look at that. Just in time for her to lose another one.

Stacy Abrams, aka, ‘M1 Abrams’, built like an M1 tank