Stacey Abrams Blasts GOP Voter Suppression After Long Lines in Georgia, Other States: ‘Combination of Incompetence and Malfeasance’

Democratic vice presidential candidate and founder of Fair Fight Action, Stacey Abrams, called out the hours-long lines many voters in Georgia and other states have endured during the 2020 primary election season, and linked these interminable waits to an institutional neglect of communities of color.

Speaking with MSNBC host Chris Hayes, Abrams described her own problems trying to vote by mail in her state’s primary elections on Tuesday before the pair turned to a broader discussion of her group’s campaign against voter suppression.

“There is a question here about incompetence versus malice, obviously, and there is a long history here both in Georgia in recent memory going back to a very, very long time going back to Reconstruction,” Hayes noted. “New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie put it this way: ‘An election where people are waiting for seven or eight hours to cast a ballot is not a free and fair election.’ Do you agree with that?”

“Absolutely,” Abrams replied. “People sacrifice a day’s wage to try to cast a vote. These are largely communities that are working class, working poor. They’re not making a lot to begin with to cast a ballot. It’s a poll tax. But we know even more that you raise the question of incompetence versus malice. In Georgia it’s both.”

“But let’s be clear,” Abrams added. “This didn’t just happen in Georgia. It also happened in South Carolina and Nevada to a lesser extent and certainly without the clownish behavior of the Secretary of State. But across the country, we are seeing this combination of incompetence and malfeasance putting voters of color at risk of not being heard in our democracy.”

Hayes then pointed to the Iowa state senate trying to block that state’s secretary of state mailing out absentee ballots to all voters — which has been a partisan issue after Trump blasted the practice and baselessly accused voting by mail as being rife with corruption.

“What do you make of this increasingly partisan attack?” Hayes asked. “Right now, our first block of the show was the pandemic hasn’t gone anywhere and we’re not in cold and flu season and we’re not in the fall when people expect it to be worse.”

“We know that it’s going to be worse. We know that people want to be heard. We are in the midst of a public health crisis, an economic collapse, a deep distrust of our justice system and we have a voting system that Republicans are doing their level best to make as unusable as possible,” Abrams claimed. “Republicans have been fighting across this country to fight back against expansion or at least access to voting rights. But we also know that Republican leaders know better. They use absentee ballots. They know that vote by mail works. They are not concerned about fraud with vote by mail. They’re concerned about participation.”

“What we saw happen in Georgia was that more Democrats voted in this election than voted in previous primaries, including in 2016,” Abrams noted. “And this record turnout looks different, looks like disaster for them. So they’re going to do their level best to limit who can actually have a voice in our election.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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