Allies of Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who narrowly lost the Georgia governor’s race, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday calling for sweeping changes to the state’s election procedures, and accusing Brian Kemp, the Republican victor, of systematically disenfranchising poor and minority voters when he was secretary of state. The litigation is a postscript to a bitter and close-fought election that many Democrats felt Mr. Kemp had rigged for his own benefit, while many Republicans considered Ms. Abrams — who did not acknowledge Mr. Kemp’s victory until 10 days after the election — a sore loser. Lauren Groh-Wargo, Ms. Abrams’s campaign manager, said the lawsuit would “describe, and then prove in court, how the constitutional rights of Georgians were trampled in the 2018 general election.”
Standing with supporters and lawyers in front of a federal courthouse in downtown Atlanta, Ms. Groh-Wargo acknowledged that the governor’s race was over, even as she described Mr. Kemp as Georgia’s “secretary of suppression.”
The lawsuit, she said, would seek “wide, large-scale reforms” to improve future elections. One of its demands is for renewed federal oversight to protect minority voting rights.
Mr. Kemp has maintained that his policies as secretary of state protected the integrity of Georgia’s elections, and that the high turnout on Nov. 6 showed that they had not deterred legitimate voters.
Full Article: ‘Large-Scale Reforms’ of Georgia Elections Sought in Federal Lawsuit – The New York Times.