In the ongoing saga of the estimated 40,000 voter-registration applications that went missing in Georgia, Brian Kemp, the secretary of state, initially said that he processed the missing applications and that the registrants (who are predominantly black and Hispanic) were now on the rolls and would be able to vote on Election Day.
However, a new Al-Jazeera report suggests that the issue is ongoing and the individuals seeking registration are still not registered to vote. The voter-advocacy groups that took Kemp’s office to court to force the state to find and process the missing applications got dealt a blow on Tuesday. A judge denied a petition that would have forced Kemp to do so. That means that as of press time, approximately 40,000 Georgians who registered to vote before the state deadline are still not registered to vote. Election Day is this coming Tuesday.
People think that the judge, a Republican, was influenced by politics instead of a desire to mete out justice.
“[A] Republican-appointed judge has backed the Republican secretary of state to deny the right to vote to a largely African-American and Latino population,” Francys Johnson, president of the Georgia NAACP, said in a press statement.
“As detailed recently, 40,000 ballots could amount to around 1.5 percent of the November vote—a margin that could easily affect the outcome in the Georgia Senate race, and in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate,” Al-Jazeera explains.
Read more at Al-Jazeera.