Stacey Abrams Claims That Increased Voting Turnout ‘Has Nothing To Do With’ Voter Suppression
By Tim Meads, May 24, 2022-DailyWire
Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams claimed on Monday that votes could still be suppressed in the Peach State despite high early voting turnout for the primary election.
On Tuesday, Fox News flagged an interview Abrams gave to MSNBC’s Joy Reid Monday night when she said there was “no correlation” between voter suppression and turn-out.
“There’s no correlation there,” Abrams told Reid after the MSNBC host claimed that Republicans were pushing a new “big lie” by saying that the 2021 Georgia election integrity law, which required photo ID among other measures, did not hamper people’s ability to vote.
“Voter suppression is about blocking or impeding certain types of voters from participating in elections,” Abrams continued. “Right now Republicans have the most competitive elections, but what we also don’t know is what is the mail-in ballot rejection rate? What are the difficulties people are having?”
“Voter suppression is not about stopping voting, it is about impeding certain voters from participating, and those voters, as you pointed out, are unlikely to be highly active in a primary,” Abrams added.
Last Friday, The Daily Wire reported that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office announced Wednesday evening that “more than 565,000 Georgians have voted early, which is a 153% increase from the same point in the early voting period in the 2018 primary election and a 189% increase in the 2020 primary election.”
“It’s fantastic. What it shows is that it’s never been easier to vote in Georgia, but we have the appropriate guardrails, securities in place,” Raffensperger told reporters. “When you have strong security that elevates people’s confidence in the process. So now, we have photo ID for all absentee voting. We have 17 days of early voting. Just Thursday and Friday left to go…but we’re already seeing numbers pushing 200 percent higher than what in 2020.”
Abrams again said on Tuesday that the high turnout was “causation without correlation” while adding, “We know that increased turnout has nothing to do with suppression.”
In reaction to Abrams’ comments, Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, told The Daily Wire that Georgia’s law, officially known as SB 202, was evidence that voting reforms can increase confidence in democracy.
“Georgia’s record turnout and efficient voting procedures have completely debunked the Left’s lies about voter suppression,” she added in an email. “By strengthening voter ID requirements, increasing mandatory days of early weekend voting, and preventing interest groups from election interference, Georgia has seen renewed confidence in their state’s election procedures and record-setting voter turnout.”
“In contrast, we have also seen problems in states, like Pennsylvania, who have not strengthened their election laws,” she continued. “After Governor Wolf vetoed legislation to reform and secure Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot procedures, there have been issues in counting the ballots and, to this day, we still don’t have a final result from that election.”
“It is clear that these election reform efforts work in promoting turnout from all backgrounds by making it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” Anderson remarked.
