Here's Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in July
saying he believes Republicans need to match Democrats when it comes to registering new voters:
Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November. Well, we’ve got to do the exact same thing. I would encourage all of you – if you have an Android or Apple device, download that app, and make it your goal to register one new Republican voter.
Aside from the fact that Kemp was clearly writing off the GOP's ability or desire to appeal to minority voters, it's hard to argue with that. If Democrats are going to try to register new voters, then what's wrong with Republicans doing the same? Nothing, obviously. That being said, the problem for Republicans is that there are a lot more unregistered potential Democratic voters than potential Republican ones, especially in places like Georgia. That means the only way for Republicans to match Democratic registration efforts is to
stop those Democratic registration efforts—and that's exactly what Kemp is doing in Georgia.
Now that a Democratic-leaning group has submitted 85,000 new voter registration forms, Kemp is no longer singing the praises of voter registration efforts: Instead, he's actively trying to block them by using his power as Georgia's top election official to force them to hand over virtually every document in their possession to his office by 5 PM ET on Tuesday.
If Kemp were serious about making elections work for everyone in his state, he'd stick to what he said in July. But now that he's seen the reality of the GOP's problem, he's changed his mind. The explanation is simple: As kos wrote earlier about the GOP's efforts to stop people from voting: "Republicans suppress voters because they've lost America."