House Democrats Are Investigating Voter Suppression in Georgia

Membership Ticker

THE FIRST $500,000

This is a big one: the first time we’re asking for the donations Mother Jones relies on since joining forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting. So in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” we lay it all out for you—why we merged, how we’re stronger together, and why we’re more optimistic than normal about the work ahead. It still won’t be easy. Please help us raise the First $500,000 we need by June 22.

This is big. Mother Jones just merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting, and this is the first time we’re asking for the donations we rely on. So we lay it all out for you in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” and we need to raise the First $500,000 in online donations by June 22. It won’t be easy. Please help if you can.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks at the University of Georgia on December 11, 2018.Joshua L. Jones/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

House Democrats are opening an investigation into widespread reports of voter suppression in Georgia during the 2018 election. They requested extensive documents from Gov. Brian Kemp, who oversaw his own election as secretary of state.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who chairs the House oversight committee, announced the investigation on Wednesday. “The Committee is particularly concerned by reports Georgians faced unprecedented challenges with registering to vote and significant barriers to casting their votes during your tenure as Secretary of State and during the 2018 election,” Cummings wrote in a letter to Kemp that he released Wednesday.

Cummings cited a multitude of voting problems under Kemp’s watch, including that 1.4 million people were purged from the voting rolls from 2012 to 2016; the registrations of 53,000 people—80 percent of them voters of color—were put on hold before the election; 214 polling places were closed while Kemp was secretary of state; and there were lines of more than four hours at heavily black voting precincts.

The committee asked Kemp for all communications and documents relating to voter roll purges, polling place closures, and problems with voting machines, as well as a program Kemp oversaw that blocked voter registration applications if information on the registration form didn’t exactly match state or federal databases. Cummings has previously said he wanted Kemp to testify before his committee.

Cummings also expressed alarm about Kemp’s refusal to recuse himself as secretary of state while running for governor and a statement falsely accusing Georgia Democrats of “cyber crimes” just before the election, requesting internal communications about both issues.

This appears to be the beginning of the most in-depth investigation into voter suppression in Georgia. Kemp’s Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, filed a federal lawsuit against Georgia’s voting laws after coming 18,000 votes short of forcing a runoff. Abrams said Kemp’s suppressive voting tactics allowed him to “tilt the playing field in his favor.”