Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe claimed that Stacey Abrams should be the governor of Georgia, accusing Brian Kemp (who ran for governor while also serving as secretary of state) of having “disenfranchised” more than 1 million Georgia voters in the state’s 2018 gubernatorial election.
“She would be the governor of Georgia today had the governor of Georgia not disenfranchised 1.4 million Georgia voters before the election,” McAuliffe said as he introduced Abrams at a campaign event on Sunday. “That’s what happened to Stacey Abrams. They took the votes away.”
On the night of the election in 2018, Abrams conceded that “former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election.” But she claimed that Kemp had pinned “his hopes for election on suppression of the people’s democratic right to vote.” She has repeatedly accused Kemp of abusing his position as secretary of state to suppress the vote.
While Kemp did clean up the voter rolls before the election (removing 1.4 million active voters from the rolls) and putting holds on some voters, University of Georgia professor Charles Bullock told USA Today that the holds would not have stopped Georgians from voting.
