Ballot dispute in Georgia heads to courts — and could be a factor in state’s close Senate race
Ballot dispute in Georgia heads to courts — and could be a factor in state’s close Senate race
By Ed O'Keefe October 24 at 6:00 AM
With an increasingly competitive and closely-watched Senate race on the line, an Atlanta courtroom will be the focus of a key voting rights dispute Friday that could make it harder for Democrats to pick up an open U.S. Senate seat on Election Day.
At issue is the fate of approximately 40,000 registration applications submitted with the help of a new voter registration group led by the state's Democratic House minority leader. She's joined in her legal battle by the NAACP and other civil rights groups, who are challenging the Republican secretary of state over whether his office has adequately processed ballot applications.
Any irregularities could spoil Democratic attempts to turn out base voters and help Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn defeat her Republican opponent, David Perdue, or Democratic State Sen. Jason Carter in his bid to unseat Republican Gov. Nathan Deal. Polls show that both races remain close. If no candidate earns 50 percent on Election Day, the governor's race faces a December runoff. A Senate runoff would be Jan. 6.
Demographers and political observers agree that there are roughly 800,000 eligible but unregistered voters in Georgia -- an ethnically diverse mix of Latinos, African Americans and Asian Americans and whites -- many of whom have moved into the Peach State in recent years.
The New Georgia Project, a group launched this year by Stacey Abrams, Georgia's Democratic House minority leader, registered nearly 86,000 new voters before the deadline this month. Partner organizations, including the NAACP, say they registered another approximately 30,000 new people.
"If you want to get people engaged, if you want people to understand the issues being made on their behalf, there’s no more pertinent time than during an election," Abrams said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. She insists that her new organization is nonpartisan, but the group's efforts are bound to benefit Democrats -- a point she didn't deny.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/24/ballot-dispute-in-georgia-heads-to-courts-and-could-be-a-factor-in-states-close-senate-race/
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