Stacey Abrams.Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty
The Republican-led effort to restrict voting access in Georgia is “a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie,” according to Democratic activist Stacey Abrams, who spoke about several controversial newpieces of legislationon CNN’sState of the Unionthis past Sunday.
In total, theAtlanta Journal-Constitutionreportedthere’s roughly 40 Republican-backed measures in Georgia aimed to make it more difficult to vote in the state.
“I do absolutely agree that it’s racist,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper when asked whether she believed the measures were racist. “It is a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”
A voter waits in line at State Farm Arena on the first day of early voting, on Oct. 12, in Atlanta, Georgia.Jessica McGowan/Getty
Abrams also batted down the notion that Republicans were backing the measures to protect the security of elections, noting that Georgia’s own Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said the state’s elections are safe and reliable already.
“Georgia’s voting system has never been more secure or trustworthy,” Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, wrote in aWashington Postop-edlast November.
Abrams told Tapper the state’s record turnout last November was a result of more people of color voting.
“It’s not a question of security,” she said. “The only connection that we can find is that more people of color voted and it changed the outcome of elections in a direction that Republicans do not like.”
Abrams continued: “We know that voter fraud did not happen [in the 2020 election]. But we know that voter participation did increase and we should all be … democratic in the sense that we should want as many people as possible who are eligible to have a voice in the direction of our nation.
“That was the fundamental premise of this nation,” she added.
Stacey Abrams in 2018.Jessica McGowan/Getty
Despitemultipleinvestigationsconcluding widespread voter frauddid not happenlast November, similar attempts to redefine election laws in the name of voting security are happening across the country.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced plans Monday fora new billaimed at decreasing voter fraud, despite admitting heisn’taware of any fraud that happened in his state during the 2020 election.
Republicans inIowaandArizonahave also advanced or signed into law similarly controversial bills, which critics say restrict voting rights.
Since then, Abrams has focused most of her efforts on voting rights.
She founded the group Fair Fight in 2018, which lobbies for new election laws and targets challenges to voting that disproportionately impact minority voters—such as long lines and precinct closures.
Two months later, Democratic Reps. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won their Senate runoff elections over Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
Abrams, one of PEOPLE’sWomen Changing the World, said she enjoyed those election wins, but realizes there’s still work to be done.
“I’m relieved not to live in a totalitarian society where we are dying with no hope of recourse. … I don’t mean to make light of it, I mean very, very seriously, that was a good thing,” she told PEOPLE. “This isn’t work to be done that will have an end date or a success. It is work to be done because I believe in the responsibility to engage and to help.”
source: people.com
