By Greg Palast reporting from Atlanta, GA
This is why Stacey Abrams won’t quit.
It begins with 92-year-old Christine Jordan, blocked from voting. By Brian Kemp. Watch this 59-seconds and you won’t wonder why Stacey Abrams won’t roll over and concede to Kemp.
Christine-Jordan
Christine Jordan, aged 92, was blocked from voting yesterday, thrown out of the polls with her walker—just one victim of Kemp’s mass cancellation of voter registrations—more than half a million Georgians purged in the night, stealthily, hidden from the public eye.
That’s why I sued Kemp last month in a federal court in Atlanta. To find out the names of every voter, including Grandma Jordan, and expose exactly how Kemp has made their voting rights vanish.
Jordan has been “voting right here since 1968,” says her granddaughter Jessica Lawrence, the year Martin Luther King was shot. Jordan’s vote registration has vanished, no record she EVER voted, though she tells me she’s never missed a vote in these 50 years.
No points for guessing Grandma Jordan is African-American.
And she had no warning, because Brian Kemp’s purge machine strikes with no notice sent. I reviewed my investigative files with Stacey Abrams back in 2014. She told me that what worried her more than anything about Kemp is that, “He is doing this stealthily.”
Abrams also was deeply concerned that our investigation found Kemp was working in secret coordination with Kris Kobach of Kansas . Our new legal actions revealed that Kobach supplied 108,000 of the names that Kemp purged. Purged in secret.
Jordan’s granddaughter can’t stop her tears, standing in the rain, crying. “It’s horrible, …she held civil rights meetings in her home …and they had no record of her. She was here in the West End community when we couldn’t….”
She can’t get out the words, “couldn’t vote.”
“And today, not being able to come out and vote… It’s extremely emotional. And it BOTHERS me. Bothers me to my core.” Then Jessica apologizes for her tears. “I’m sorry.”
But it’s Brian Kemp who should be sorry. We met Mrs. Jordan after escorting Rahiem Shabazz to the same voting station. They told him he couldn’t vote either. So they gave him a provisional ballot.
Kemp has already ruled Rahiem’s vote won’t be counted.
So Rahiem asked me whether he can go to federal court to get the vote counted. I called our lawyers. We are working through the night on it.
I was with a hundred purged voters yesterday, shunted to provisional ballots.
Stacey Abrams says we have to count those ballots Not because she’s a candidate, but because she’s an American.
And, Mr. Kemp, this is 2018, not 1958.
* * *
I have cancelled all our flights home.
The Palast investigations team will not leave until Mr. Kemp is forced to count every vote.
And may I remind you, Mr. Kemp, you are scheduled to meet us in federal court in Atlanta.
* * *
And for those of you who think the work of our little team has no effect, just ask Kris Kobach who lost his bid for Governor of Kansas tonight.
