Remember Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas and candidate for Governor, who found himself in charge of voting in an extremely close contest for the GOP nomination? As noted, his opponent conceded before any horrific ethical transgressions on Kobach’s part were discovered. Turns out there’s another situation in which a Republican Secretary of State is running for Governor, and being presented with some interesting ethical challenges, this time in Georgia, where a school teacher was attempting to teach a little civics to her students and discovered that, despite her excellent voting record, she had been stricken from the voting rolls:
She tried re-registering, but with about one month left before a November election that will decide a governor’s race and some competitive U.S. House races, Appling-Nunez’s application is one of over 53,000 sitting on hold with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office. And unlike Appling-Nunez, many people on that list — which is predominantly black, according to an analysis by The Associated Press — may not even know their voter registration has been held up.
Tuesday is Georgia’s deadline to register and be eligible to vote in the November General Election.
Kemp, who’s also the Republican candidate for governor, is in charge of elections and voter registration in Georgia.
His Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Stacey Abrams, and voting rights advocacy groups charge that Kemp is systematically using his office to suppress votes and tilt the election, and that his policies disproportionately affect black and minority voters. [AP]
The AP story has a lot more, mainly Kemp trying to take the moral high ground, while Abrams and her allies continue to dispute his assertions, especially in regards to a pile of suspended voter registrations which Kemp’s office is apparently simply sitting on.
But, as Steve Benen notes, Kemp should have found a way to recuse himself from the situation as an interested party. It’s an interesting situation: Republican Kemp is a white guy, while Democrat Abrams is gunning to become the first black female governor of Georgia. If Kemp is caught out manipulating the vote, would it cost him anything in Georgia? Ordinarily, I’d guess he’s playing a dangerous game, but this time I’m wondering if he’s safe behind a wall.
And, of course, any such guilt in this matter would continue to blacken the national reputation of the GOP, something they can ill-afford.
