Georgia's Very Own Megathread! (v2)

[Virginiá]

It seems like (so far) this is going to be a really high turnout midterm in most states, and not just because of Democrats. I think even Virginia Republicans saw a small uptick in turnout in 2017 relative to 2013, it just couldn't match the huge surge of Democrats.

[Virginiá]

Freedom policy! I wish Dems would put that into law in the States they control.

Yea honestly businesses and govt agencies should be allowed to do this with voter registration as much as they please imo. I don't see the issue with simply asking that someone register - it's not demanding they vote a certain way, after all, and with America constantly getting low turnout elections relative to the developed world, we ought to use whatever leverage we have to push registration rates higher.

Or we could just enact same-day registration in every single state. That would be much better. But of course higher turnout is the entire reason it's not allowed in most Republican-controlled states.

[Virginiá]

Will Ferrell volunteering for Abrams

[Virginiá]

^ The polls do give me hope to a degree, but the AA share of the early vote being lower than it should be isn't exactly comforting.

I'm curious - are African Americans turning out like previous elections but representing a lesser share of the electorate because other groups are turning out in higher numbers? Or are African Americans making up a proportionately smaller % of the early vote compared to previous elections?

(apologies if this is clearly addressed elsewhere in the thread - trying to multitask here and don't have time to skim)

[Virginiá]

Neither Kemp or Abrams are good candidates, but some people may hold their nose and vote for Abrams.

I'm sure some apathetic black voters are probably being bullied and coerced to vote for Abrams, assuming every black person is a Democrat.

Abrams will win 90%-98% of the black vote, she will receive 20% of the white vote or less, but Latino voters look like a tossup.

They don't need to be bullied or "coerced" into voting that way. They vote like that in almost every election.

What exactly is the point of your post? To point out that AAs vote as a bloc, something everyone already knows because its been happening for generations?

[Virginiá]

Kemp, in his office as SoS, has launched an investigation of the Georgia Democratic Party for allegedly attempting to hack the state's voter system.  He has so far presented no evidence to back up this claim.

The AJC's Jim Galloway (generally a pretty objective political reporter) has a scathing article about this:  https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/brian-kemp-november-surprise-show-the-facts-and-make-quick/3jgTq3R4pAQq3x6paQ8PUP/

Kemp should be in jail

Yea pretty much. People like Kemp who abuse their power to launch dubious criminal investigations for partisan gain are the kind of people worth Lock Them Up chants. It would be my hope that Abrams would launch an investigation of his office if she won, but somehow I doubt that would happen.

[Virginiá]

Yea pretty much. People like Kemp who abuse their power to launch dubious criminal investigations for partisan gain are the kind of people worth Lock Them Up chants. It would be my hope that Abrams would launch an investigation of his office if she won, but somehow I doubt that would happen.

 The Supreme Court made all this election mucking much easier when they overturned key provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Remember in the eternal wisdom of John Roberts the best way to get over race is to like to get over race, duh.

As far as I am concerned, Shelby was just Roberts finding a reason to justify something he believed for a long time, like literally going back to his role in the Reagan administration, if not earlier. He was as vehemently against the VRA in the 80s as he was in 2013. I guess racism must have been dead in the 80s too? 

For as 'concerned' as Roberts acts regarding the USSC's legitimacy, he can't seem to stop himself from ruling on cases that give more and more unfair advantages to the wealthy and more importantly, the Republican Party. And yet he has the gall to sit on his perch and try to tell us that the Intelligent Man™ on the street simply won't understand that courts striking down brazen political corruption in the form of rigged district maps is just the court system holding corrupt politicians to account. Awfully convenient for the GOP

[Virginiá]

I don't know why they are surprised. Early voting was nuts and polls indicated possibly the highest turnout midterm in generations. They should have played it safe gotten more machines, if not more polling places even.

[Virginiá]

>Democrats invest millions in a blue wave year with massive ground game
> still lose every statewide office (probably)
omg swing state probably lean D tbh omg

Republicans got clobbered in the US Senate race in Michigan in 2014 yet went on to win the state on the presidential level in 2016.

Given how inelastic Georgia is, this should be pretty scary for Republicans. Ditto for Texas. I mean, yea, they won right now, but it's a slow march to the grave, and it's playing out as has been predicted for a while now (at least for GA).

Although as a Democrat, I'm perfectly fine with Republicans taking their current position in GA for granted.

[Virginiá]

...because there are only 2 Blue Senate seats up? If the Dems want to take the senate(in this scenario, AZ and FL have flipped) they will need 4 seats. They lose AL, putting them down by 4, and gain, the Blue Senate seats, putting them at -2. From there, they need to win the presidency and two currently Red State senate seats to win the senate. The most likely targets would be AZ, and either NC/GA. This would be the D path to the senate of least resistance.

I'm kind of worried that 2020's electorate will be just as polarized and that will limit opportunities. Even under such a situation, I still think Montana, North Carolina and maybe Georgia are doable. Iowa should be too although less so than maybe previously thought. Maine may, depending on what goes on with Collins and whether Democrats can tarnish her image even more over Kavanaugh (they may be able to). If anything, NC and GA are just as doable as they would be without Trump on the ballot, since they always have very polarized results. So in that sense they are either ripe for flips or not.

I think the opportunities are there but they seem like harder reaches right now unless Trump goes down fairly comfortably (something I still think is not only possible but maybe even more likely than not as of right now).

[Virginiá]

Oh right, I forgot about Arizona. Good catch.

I'm a bit less optimistic about Texas and Georgia still. I really do like the performances this year even if we lost, but I still question whether we can actually flip those Senate seats in 2020. Maybe we lose by 1 point, but it's still a loss. Although I admit I do think it's competitive and a large presidential win might send us over the top, so that would be my definition of 'doable.'

Suffice to say I just have little faith in most southern states. They are always a tease.

[Virginiá]

Thx for the insight who appointed the judges, and why there was no appropiate funding.

About the "exact match", here a source I found:
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/10/how-dismantling-voting-rights-act-helped-georgia-discriminate-again/572899/
OK, discount the left leaning bias of the article, the important date was 2016 in which the first programme was canceled by a judge. In 2017, the georgia legislature made a new law, to which you referred.

About the voting rights act: Neither do I think that all the provisions are OK, e g the federal review. In this case, I fully approve of the SCOTUS ruling that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. And there is at least one more explanation than voter suppresion for problems of minorities with the exact match law.

How come? Is this a view on its constitutionality or is it more of a preference to not hinder the states?

Because I don't see how anyone can look at what the states have done with election law over the past 8 years, if not the past 60 years, and conclude that they can be trusted to run fair elections. The majority party of these states have and are constantly trying to game the system and for a long time, the federal government was the only thing that could stop the most abusive states of all - the south. Before the Voting Rights Act, calling America an actual liberal democracy would have been laughable.

If anything, the states need more federal intervention in federal elections, and not just in the south.

[Virginiá]

That certain laws from have to be reviewed by the federal level is somewhat disturbing to my perspective. Germany consists as well of semi-automonous states in which the federal government has no say about electoral laws.

Of course, there must be somekind of check that unfair practises must be stopped. Yet the way it is realized is something that is doubtful out of my European perspective.
I do not approve of out federal Government which simply gave the same power of reviewing the Budget law by the EU. This is anti-democratic, and I assess this review power in the Voting Rights Act in the same way. 

Generally I agree that the federal government shouldn't be given this unlimited, total review power over state laws, but when it comes to elections, it is incredibly important. That is how the people are supposed to affect change, and our entire system doesn't work if that is subverted. Consider that pre-1965, it was impossible for African Americans to exercise their right to vote in many southern states because a huge wall had been build between them and the ballot box. Or consider that today, politicians in state majority parties are drawing maps so egregiously partisan that even landslide elections fail to dislodge the majority party. It does get to a point where a state has so thoroughly rigged its elections that it would take decade(s) or longer to even have a chance at undoing it.

One could say that instead of a preclearance review, states could just be sued, and that is what happens now. However, lawsuits take time, money and aren't always effective. This is a problem because states can just keep churning out laws faster than groups can sue. It only makes sense that states who can't seem to stop trying to game the system should no longer have the ability to unilaterally change their election laws. Lastly, I'd argue that since we already did this for a long time, it did work out fine for the most part. The benefits certainly outweighed the negatives.

Anyway, I suppose we'll probably just have to agree to disagree. But I do wonder if you are aware just how far some state parties go in trying to consolidate power in America. We're not just talking about closing a few polling places here and there.

[Virginiá]

Writing's on the wall...

https://www.whitdem.org/multimedia/GAGubProj.gif

Would that result still be attainable even if a Democrat becomes president in 2020 and Kemp runs for reelection?

[Virginiá]

^ Thanks Griff. Those are really good points actually. Hard to see how Kemp ever becomes popular under the current circumstances.

[Virginiá]

There's no such thing as a state that'll be one party forever, but it seems like it might be gone for a generation.

Indiana was fairly competitive in the 90s and 2000s, but polarization and gerrymandering have foreclosed on those opportunities for now. I think Democrats can somewhat bounce back in the future though, once the country has depolarized a bit and Millennials and post-Millennials take over as the dominant generations. Going to be a while

[Virginiá]

I'm going to be blunt here and call out all these Republicans ITT whining about "optics", "temper tantrums", "entitlement" and "graceless moves". Your faux outrage is nothing more than hypocritical histrionics. You are embarrassing yourselves; don't be surprised when everyone stops taking you seriously.

For at least two decades the go-to Republican strategy in close/contested elections has been this:

If the Republican has a narrow lead:
1. attack the Democrat as a sore loser
2. demand the "result of the election is respected"
3. attempt to suppress/interrupt the remaining vote count
4. demand absolute adherence to insanely strict deadlines to abrogate the democratic contest
5. when courts step in to ensure all votes are counted, attack them as liberal "activists"
6. push propaganda that delegitimizes the democratic process; character assassination on Democrat

if the Democrat has a narrow lead:
1. refuse to concede under any circumstances
2. attempt to abuse the judiciary to overturn the will of the electorate
3. Yell loudly about fraud even when there is no evidence of it
4. dig your heels in for months to prevent the Democratic winner from timely taking office
5. attempt to commit blatant fraud if possible (most obvious example here is AL 2002)
6. make up lies to delegitimize the Democrat ("Christine Gregoire "found" a box of ballots in her trunk")

I have no doubt that every single one of you attacking Stacey Abrams have also been defending Bruce Poliquin in Maine as he demands to change the entire electoral system so he can "win"

This election was full of extremely suspicious irregularities from the very start and a heavy dose of skepticism should be applied to literally anything Brian Kemp has said either as a candidate or as the Secretary of State, especially because he didn't even pretend to respect the boundaries between those two roles. He repeatedly abused his role as the putatively "neutral" arbiter/administrator of the electoral process to fraudulently push the election in his own favor, going as far as to fabricate claims of "democratic hacker investigations" and suppress the minority vote for spurious reasons.

For our democratic process to have even the faintest trace of legitimacy, it is absolutely essential for the judicial system to thoroughly examine every questionable element of this election. Stacey Abrams is a bona fide Profile in Courage here: taking an unpopular stand to ensure the ideals of our republic are respected and every vote is fairly counted. If you think she's doing this for selfish reasons or a sense of entitlement then you fundamentally misunderstand who Stacey Abrams is as a person. She knows she's facing a wall of institutionalized Republican corruption designed to keep itself in power at all costs. She knows the hyperactive and highly funded right wing propaganda machine will dedicate every moment of this process to a character assassination that will ruin any future she could have otherwise had in statewide politics. If she was acting out of self interest she would have dropped out fairly quickly. She's making a principled stand here, to shine a light on the pitiful excuse for a democracy that exists in our state.

Besides it's not like there's any rush for her to step out of the race so the complaints about how she's "stalling" or whatever don't even make sense. Nathan Deal is still governor until the second week of January. Any potential runoff election isn't until December and realistically they'd easily be able to hold the election with a just a few days' prep time. Hell, worst case scenario, it'd be trivial for a court to delay the gubernatorial runoff so it occurs on the allocated date for federal office runoffs.

!!!!!!This!!!!!! I think we can all remember McCrory & friend's graceful concession, where he started accusing thousands of voters of fraud when he fell behind in the count, and then literally got sued for defamation. Or a Wisconsin Supreme Court race where John Doe emails revealed Republicans plotting how to handle the extremely close result, mentioning that they should scream about fraud non-stop to cast doubt, even though they very clearly knew the accusations were baseless and merely a political tactic. Or a more recent example of graceful winner Rick Scott, who actually wanted to impound voting equipment and sent cops to "supervise" the recount and sniff out """fraud""". Or who better than Republican Overlord Donald J Trump, who beat everyone at this game by starting the process of fraud accusations and doubt-casting month(s) before the election even took place, as he thought he was going to lose. It just goes on like this.

This is even more meaningful when you consider that the entire messaging strategy Republicans have pursued with regards to voter suppression laws is that even without evidence of fraud, they must pass restrictions anyway to restore "integrity" to our elections, and boost public confidence in them. Yes, that's right. As they scream about fraud merely as a cheap ploy to save face, helping to destroy trust in our elections, they turn around and point to the trust they have ruined and say, "look! they've lost faith in our elections! we must pass voter ID to restore trust!"

All of this is hands down one of the worst parts of American politics. Such respectable behavior, clearly.

[Virginiá]

I don't know if 'rigged' is the right word here, because to me that indicates that the people in power schemed and put into effect a plan to ensure a win save for exceptional circumstances. What Kemp did here seems more like putting his thumb on the scale and abusing power to slowly whittle down Abrams' vote share as much as he could get away with.

Other than outright mass fraud, gerrymandering is absolutely something I would consider election rigging, though. That's how you end up with Democrats winning far less seats than they should under any plausible neutral-ish maps, and the reasons why this happens are very clear. They might as well be stuffing ballot boxes with how effective it is.

[Virginiá]

IMO, the proper way to look at it is that in a just world, around this time, Kemp would be standing in front of a judge as he is indicted for corruption. I don't think what he did was insurmountable but you also have to consider that Kemp has a history of abusing power, including using his power to initiate (directly or indirectly) criminal investigations of regular voters/local politicians/activists who had the audacity to try and bring change to the political process:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/av4nzb/the-quitman-10-2-and-voter-suppression-in-modern-georgia-715

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/georgia-fraud-probe-targets-black-voter-registration-group

And everything that happened this year.

But because this is America, of course it's allowed. This country's record on voting rights and fair elections is legitimately sickening and continues to be to this day.

[Virginiá]

I'm afraid you're right.  She has had a great opportunity to learn from this experience, to build on it, and establish the Democratic Party in Georgia as a long term competitive force.  However, I suspect that she will play Harold Ford Jr. 2006--a great run, give up on the state, and take a position as an MSNBC panelist/NYT columnist.

Georgia will still be trending the same way with or without her, although her dedication and resources may have helped it along a bit faster. Also I think she said she was open to running again, so we could see her again as soon as 2020 (or 2022 at the latest I imagine).

[Virginiá]

It's time to solve the Mystery of the 100,000 Missing Votes

https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/time-solve-the-mystery-the-100-000-missing-votes/nEYXrcGW8et8esyVL6W4QM/

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[Virginiá]

I still think her dragged out concession irreparably hurt her image in the state. I would like to see some polling to back this up but while it was a good cause I can't imagine it reflected well on her with most voters.

It did hurt, but I think it's temporary, not irreparable.  Most voters will not care about it in 2 or 4 years.

Hurt among whom? People who already hated her?

Pretty much. This kind of criticism usually falls under the theory that voters pay attention and care much more than they actually do. Let alone just shy of 2 years from now.