Stacey Abrams calls out Sec. of State over primary voting chaos

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    ATLANTA, GA (WGCL) — Long lines and long waits were just the tip of the iceberg for Stacey Abrams as she discussed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s alleged mishandling of the voting process.

In a press conference Tuesday night, Abrams said there will be no solution until Raffensperger takes responsibility for his role in what many Georgians described as an unnecessarily exhaustive process.

“This happened across the state. The problem was inoperable machines and poor training. An inadequate amount of systems is not acceptable,” said the one-time gubernatorial candidate.

Counties across the metro including Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett each saw voters waiting in lines for hours on end as lines snaked around buildings. Fulton, being one of the largest counties, experienced some of the worst wait times.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms took to Twitter to find out if those outside of the South Fulton area were just as impacted by the excessive waits and system delays.

Regardless of the cause Abrams made it clear the issues were not new.

“We, in 2018, confronted many of these challenges and we laid out the concerns in the lawsuit that Fair Fight Action filed in 2019. But we have also been working closely with state and local leaders, trying to prepare for what we knew would be disastrous if not done properly,” said Abrams.

Following her loss against Brian Kemp, Abrams started the advocacy group Fair Fight Georgia to encourage voter participation, educate people of their voters’ rights, and fight against voter suppression. The suit further addresses what Abrams considers “deep seeded” issues with the state’s election system.

“The Secretary of State, and this administration, decided to purchase new machines over the objection of many, intended to roll them out, and do so without the adequate preparation,” she said. “What we know happened this week, this month, and this process is that the best intentions met the worst preparation. And we found ourselves in the midst of incompetence and maleficence,” continued Abrams.

She further lamented that Raffensperger’s failure to find error in his handling of the voting process only makes the issues worse.

“Unfortunately, the Secretary of State is now trying to shift the blame and he’s trying to create a pretext that only a few counties are being impacted, and that this is a localized problem,” said the self-descried dogged believer of the US democracy. “When you start with the right intention, the process works better.”

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