WASHINGTON -- On this week's edition of NBC's Meet The Press, Georgia Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams said she believes her Republican opponent, the state's current secretary of state Brian Kemp, is deliberately rejecting some voter registration forms using an "exact match" methodology.
Moderator Chuck Todd asked Abrams about her view on the controversy regarding the rejected registration forms. As a result, some 70 percent of rejected applications belong to minority voters.
"Do you believe this is an intentional decision by your opponent (Kemp) in the office that he runs?" Todd asked.
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"Absolutely," Abrams said. "I was part of a coalition that sued him in 2016 to force him to stop using this process and a federal judge agreed with us. He said that he had unlawfully canceled 33,000 registrations, and he was forced to restore those registrations. In response, the Republicans in the 2017 Legislative session to allow him to do it again. So the challenge is two-fold."
"One -- we need to know that this is a flawed system that has a disproportionate effect on people of color," she continued. "But it also has the ability to erode trust in our system. I know that Secretary Kemp is well-aware of this, and it's part of a pattern of behavior where he tries to tilt the playing field in his favor or that of his party. This should not require the erosion of public trust."
Kemp's office has said that those whose applications have been rejected in this fashion may vote via a provisional ballot on Election Day. This means that a person's voter status must be resolved within three days following Election Day for their vote to count.
