{"id":32813,"date":"2018-10-14T13:48:58","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T13:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32813"},"modified":"2018-10-14T13:48:58","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T13:48:58","slug":"is-there-something-rotten-in-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32813","title":{"rendered":"Is there something rotten in Georgia?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/brian-kemp-ap-111815_p3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-32814\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/brian-kemp-ap-111815_p3-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/brian-kemp-ap-111815_p3-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/brian-kemp-ap-111815_p3.jpg 377w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s see how this works.<\/p>\n<p>The Georgia secretary of state is running for governor. He also is in charge of administering the state&#8217;s election laws. This official, Brian Kemp, is locked in a tight race against an African-American woman, Stacey Abrams.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, Kemp &#8212; a Republican &#8212; ordered a &#8220;pause&#8221; on more than 50,000 voter applications, seeking to ensure they were properly identified as legitimate voters. Georgia&#8217;s voting population is about 32 percent black, but the percentage of black voters&#8217; applications in the &#8220;paused&#8221; list is about 70 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Hmm. Is there something a bit smelly here? Abrams and her fellow Democrats believe there is and they have filed a lawsuit to overturn Kemp&#8217;s order on the effort to delay the voter registration effort in Georgia.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not too <em>peachy<\/em>, if you ask me.<\/p>\n<p>Kemp and his supporters say other states have enacted similar rules. They contend the courts have upheld them. They call the complaint by Abrams and her allies &#8220;bogus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here is how\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2018\/10\/12\/georgias-gop-gubernatorial-candidate-brian-kemp-sued-over-claims-of-suppressing-53000-minority-voters\/?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.f2f982e7d3aa\">The Washington Post is reporting it.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This looks bizarre in the extreme to me.<\/p>\n<p>Kemp and Abrams are locked in a tight race for governor. Kemp leads his Democratic opponent by about 2 percentage points, which makes the race a toss-up. Eliminating the 53,000 voter registration applications through some bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo could prove decisive in a close election.<\/p>\n<p>That the issue also contains a racial element &#8212; in the Deep South, no less &#8212; gives this story even more standing.<\/p>\n<p>My hope is that the courts settle this matter quickly, in time for the election.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most galling is the idea that the state&#8217;s chief elections officer who happens to be running for governor to my way of thinking signifies a serious conflict of interest in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>This matter fails the smell test \u2026 <em>bigly<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s see how this works. The Georgia secretary of state is running for governor. He also is in charge of administering the state&#8217;s election laws. This official, Brian Kemp, is locked in a tight race against an African-American woman, Stacey Abrams. In 2017, Kemp &#8212; a Republican &#8212; ordered a &#8220;pause&#8221; on more than 50,000 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=32813\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Is there something rotten in Georgia?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[6583,8043,5135],"class_list":["post-32813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-news","tag-black-voters","tag-the-washington-post","tag-voter-registration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32815,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32813\/revisions\/32815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}