After the long and contentious gubernatorial race in Georgia, we know two things to be true: 1.) sadly, Brian Kemp will be Georgia’s next governor and 2). the fight against voter suppression and gerrymandering in the state is far from over. After almost a decade of work to disenfranchise millions of voters, Kemp stepped down from his role as secretary of state after claiming victory over Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. His “win” (aka stolen election) is a result of the many efforts he put in place to suppress votes. On Tuesday, Georgia voters go back to the polls to select Kemp’s replacement. Though nothing will fix what has already been done, voters now have an opportunity to at least mitigate some of the damage.
Democrat John Barrow is the best person for the secretary of state job. After all, he knows all too well how gerrymandering can impact voters and congressional districts. As reported by Mother Jones, after being elected to the House, Barrow was drawn out of two different districts by Georgia Republicans in order to make it easier for the GOP to secure votes. In his own words, Barrow says that he is “the most gerrymandered member of Congress in history.” And his personal experience is exactly why he’s running for office. His Republican opponent is state Rep. Brad Raffensperger. Because neither Barrow nor Raffensperger won the majority of the vote on Election Day, they head to a runoff election on Tuesday.
Recently, Barrow reminded Georgians why this election matters so much:
“For many years, most folks haven’t put much thought into the office of Secretary of State,” Barrow wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the election’s first round. “But on November 6th, all of us received a civics lesson on the importance of this office.”
As we saw in Georgia’s gubernatorial race, the secretary of state has the power to rig elections by controlling access to the ballot. Ideally, the person in that role should want as many people as possible to vote in elections that are fair and democratic. But that’s not what’s happening here. The contrast between Barrow and Raffensperger couldn’t be more stark. Barrow wants to reverse Kemp’s restrictive policies and plans to make it easier for Georgians to vote by implementing automatic voter registration and replacing electronic voting machines, which are vulnerable to hacking and prone to malfunction, with paper ballots.
On the other hand, Raffensperger supports Kemp’s work and has called him “a man of high integrity.” He’s another conspiracist who believes that we need to crack down on “illegal voting” (which has been a right-wing talking point for years without any basis in fact or proof) and he’s been endorsed by Donald Trump, who we can be assured does not know what a secretary of state actually does.
Moreover, Raffensperger is so out of- touch that despite widespread reports of voting problems on Election Day, he continues to claim that only a few precincts had issues and has called claims of voter suppression “unfounded and unfair.” But don’t be fooled. Raffensperger isn’t so much divorced from reality as he is very aware that the Republican strategy for victory in a diverse and changing electorate is to suppress as many votes as possible. And, sadly, in Georgia, their efforts are paying off.
Currently, voter turnout for the runoff race is down 56 percent compared to November’s election. And the folks who are coming out are whiter and much older than in the gubernatorial race. Barrow isn’t Abrams, that’s for sure. He’s not progressive—he voted against the Affordable Care Act while in Congress and has endorsements from the NRA. And he’s struggling to get the kind of turnout that Abrams did among black voters. He’s a reminder of how defensive voting doesn’t inspire the same kind of turnout and energy as when voters are passionate and enthusiastic about a candidate. He’s also running after voter disenfranchisement made it that much harder for blacks and people of color to vote in an election that so many believe was stolen. People are feeling Abrams’ loss profoundly. According to Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown, Barrow is certainly the best candidate but he just doesn’t have the same appeal that Abrams did.
“Stacey’s loss was a really big loss for our community, not just that she lost but how she lost,” Brown says. “I don’t know a single black person in Georgia that doesn’t believe that race was stolen. That’s a lot of wind out of the air.”
Still, Barrow has been endorsed by Abrams and remains the best hope to beat back voter suppression in Georgia. Democrats continue to win more votes in elections nationwide, but face uphill battles in key states due to restrictive voting laws. Electing Barrow is a start to undoing the decades of systemic voter marginalization that Republicans have been putting in place in order to win. If he loses, we continue to move further backward in terms of voting rights.
But let’s not solely put the onus on voters of color to turn out for Barrow. Statistics show us that even though they are less enthusiastic about him, they likely will. We need white progressives and moderates to follow suit. In an era of rampant voter suppression and disenfranchisement, we need all hands on deck to stop the Republicans from this dangerous game they’ve gotten so good at playing.