'It's an American issue': can Georgia's candidate for secretary of state save democracy?

[marmar]

‘It’s an American issue’: can Georgia’s candidate for secretary of state save democracy?
Bee Nguyen, who has led her party’s fight against Republican-backed voting restrictions, may prove vital to building election integrity and restoring voter confidence in Georgia

Timothy Pratt in Atlanta, Georgia
Fri 17 Dec 2021 07.50 EST


(Guardian UK) Georgia state representative Bee Nguyen has seemed destined to wage epic battles in her fast-changing state ever since replacing Stacey Abrams in its legislature four years ago when the now-nationally-recognized Democrat announced her first bid for governor.

Or maybe it’s since former president and Georgia native Jimmy Carter decided, more than 40 years ago, to double the number of refugees admitted to the US from Vietnam – including her parents. Nguyen was born in Iowa, but has lived in Georgia since her parents moved here when she was seven.

Now, events of recent months have made it clearer than ever what’s at stake for Nguyen in her next bid: becoming Georgia’s secretary of state, responsible for overseeing elections and other duties in a state that seems set to be at the center of 2022’s midterm elections and also a key battleground in the 2024 presidential race.

Since becoming the first Asian American woman in Georgia’s legislature, she has led her party’s fight against Republican-backed restrictions on voting. Now, if she becomes her party’s nominee for secretary of state, her ideas may prove vital to building election integrity and restoring voter confidence in Georgia, and by example, elsewhere in America at a moment when US democracy itself seems in peril. ..............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/17/georgia-secretary-of-state-election-bee-nguyen