ATLANTA — Rolling Stone magazine just released secretly recorded audio of Secretary of State Brian Kemp expressing concern about his opponent's supporters coming out to vote.
The release comes as the Republican candidate for governor faces several lawsuits accusing him of suppressing minority votes.
11Alive has not been able to independently verify the source of the audio, but Rolling Stone credits someone who paid to attend a campaign function for Kemp last Friday in Buckhead. Investigator Andy Pierrotti listened to the audio.
The recording is 21 minutes long, during which Kemp is heard addressing the crowd and expressing concern over strong voter turnout for his democratic rival Stacey Abrams.
“And, as worried as we were going into early voting, literally tens-of-millions of dollars that they are putting behind get out the vote efforts for their base, a lot of that with absentee ballot requests they have... they have just an unprecedented number of that," the magazine quotes him as saying. "Which is something that continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote — which they absolutely can — and mail those ballots in. We gotta have heavy turnout to offset that."
There are two take-aways from the audio. On one hand, it's a candidate encouraging his base to vote. On the other hand, this is the state's head of elections expressing concerns about strong early voting turnout, all while voting rights groups have accused him and the Secretary of State's Office of voter suppression.
Federal lawsuits accuse Kemp and the state of wrongfully putting 53,000 voter applications on hold due to errors. Most of them are minorities.
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Kemp's campaign responded to 11Alive by email, writing, "San Francisco socialists and liberal billionaires from New York are spending millions to buy the governor's race and advance their extreme agenda in Georgia. They want government-run healthcare, voting rights for illegal immigrants, and $13,000 in new taxes that will bankrupt Georgia families.”
Meanwhile, NBC News cited a new poll today indicating that Republicans in Georgia and seven other states are outpacing democrats in early voting numbers. According to the poll, of the early voter participants in Georgia, 52 percent are Republicans and 43 percent are Democrats.
