Georgia's Very Own Megathread! (v2)

[Hammy]

Brian Kemp was at UGA last saturday.

Where's Stacey at?

Probably calling her donors from New York and California

Pitiful that people look at their own fellow citizens in outside states like they're foreign agents. Keep it up, people like you are my motivation to vote when otherwise I wouldn't care enough to take the time out of my day.

[Hammy]

I'm getting tempted to rate Georgia Safe R because it's become increasingly clear that nothing resembling a free or fair election is going to take place, especially with the guy running for office being in charge of running the election.

[Hammy]

So apparently Stacy Abrams burned the state flag during a college protest.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-democratic-gubernatorial-candidate-stacey-abrams-burned-flag-during-protest-at-state-capitol.amp

Nobody's going to care aside from people who had zero chance of voting for her to start with.

[Hammy]

^^^ Related to above, I'm back at looking at the EV totals by county and comparing them to the final electorate from 2014. Essentially, I took each county's EV totals and stacked them against Deal/Carter's performance, to calculate what the statewide margin would be if every county's voters supported Abrams and/or Kemp by the same margins as Deal and/or Carter. It's not great:

2014: 52.75% Deal, 44.89% Carter (Deal +7.86)
2018: 53.22% Kemp, 44.42% Abrams (Kemp +8.80)

Just to be clear: this isn't saying that Kemp is ahead by 9 right now, or that he would even win among all voters by the same margin. What it is saying is that historically GOP counties and/or constituencies are actually slightly more represented right now in the 2018 EV than they were among all votes from 2014. In essence, it means likely GOP territory is outpacing DEM territory in early vote relative to what we'd expect in a general election overall, irrespective of the figures. That's not good.

Now, Abrams could very well be doing better in even heavily-GOP counties, there could be more Democrats and non-white voters turning out in otherwise hostile counties for Democrats, Abrams could certainly be over-performing compared to Carter in a variety of heavily-populated counties that Deal won (particularly in metro ATL), and so forth. Nevertheless, what this shows is that right now, base Democratic areas are slacking relative to base GOP areas, which isn't exactly a natural indicator of success.

So we're kinda f**ked, in a way?

Seriously, wtf is wrong with my state?

The guy running the election is running for office and illegally removed 300,000 people who would vote against him from the voter rolls, that's what's wrong.

[Hammy]

I'll ask here since I'm in Georgia, but a more general question: What effect is the weather likely to have since it looks like it'll be poor on Tuesday for most of the country?

[Hammy]

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/

Welcome to the third world, courtesy of Trump and the GOP. There's a good chance that Kemp steals this election even if he loses it.

This returns to the question of if it's worth participating in this charade?

[Hammy]

Kemp is one of the worst republican candidates running this cycle, just as a human being. It's ashame that he has such a good chance of winning. Hoping for an Abrams miracle(but it probably won't happen)

It seems Kemp himself is going to personally make sure it doesn't happen.

[Hammy]

I'll still vote (more out of OCD and not wanting to have gaps in my voting history) but I'm willing to put money that this election is neither free or fair and that Kemp uses his position to ensure he wins outright tomorrow.

The last tiny ounce of faith that this country has anything even remotely resembling free elections (faith that was almost nonexistent before I was even of voting age thanks to 2000, despite my support for Bush) is beyond long gone at this point.

Expecting the same thing to happen in Wisconsin as Georgia as well, which was factored into my predictions.

[Hammy]

Georgia needs another dose of reconstruction.

I've long been of the thought that reconstruction should've been permanent.

[Hammy]

https://twitter.com/BrianKempGA/status/1059581337554898944

Ironic coming from the same people who are backed by the KKK and literal Nazis and then whine and complain when called out that they "can't help who supports us"

[Hammy]

I can not effing believe Kemp might get off free. Lines up to 4 hours, decreased and malfunctioning voting machines, missing power cords....this isn't a democracy.

The Deep South has consistently failed to meet even the basic standards for what qualifies as democracy since Reconstruction ended, I'm not sure why people are suddenly surprised this year.

[Hammy]

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1059874113492258817

You just know there’s gonna be a ton of stories like this and Republicans will cry voter fraud on social media.

If only their "voters shouldn't break the law" concept mattered when it came to following protocol at polling locations

[Hammy]

Georgia and Florida disappointed the nation.

Kemp stole the election--his margin was smaller than the number of voters he removed.

I'm probably not going to bother voting any longer as long as I live in Georgia--I'm not going to contribute legitimacy to this one party "election"