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VOLUME 97 - NUMBER 47
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Tight race in
Georgia shines
light on voting
restrictions
By Russ Bynum and Christina A. Cassidy
ATLANTA (AP) - He aggressively deleted inactive voters from
registration rolls, enforced an “exact match” policy that could have
prevented thousands of Georgians from registering to vote and
launched an investigation that disrupted a major voter registration
drive.
Now Republican Brian Kemp is declaring himself the victor in
Georgia’s race for governor, a race so close that even marginal differ
ences in voting and turnout could make the difference in determining
whether the race goes to a runoff.
The Associated Press has not called the race between Kemp, who
until this week was Georgia’s secretary of state, and Democrat Sta
cey Abrams, a former state lawmaker seeking to, become the nation’s
first black woman to be elected governor.
In a state dominated by Republicans, Abrams staked her cam
paign largely on getting new and infrequent voters to participate in
the election.
Meanwhile, Kemp and the state’s Republican legislature have im
posed tighter voting and registration rules that can make it more dif
ficult for just those voters to register and cast ballots. Most of those
rules have come since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a key pro
vision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
“Georgia uses every tool in the voter-suppression tool kit,” said
Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia. “It’s un
friendly the way that voting happens in Georgia. It’s more like cash
ing a check than casting a ballot.”
Kemp defends his tenure, noting increased voter registration on
his watch.
Like other Southern states, Georgia after the Civil War had a his
tory of suppressing black voters by disallowing votes from people
who owed taxes, imposing literacy tests and implementing white-
only primary elections. Those efforts eventually were stopped by the
courts and the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But the Supreme Court ruling five years ago rolled back a provi
sion of that act that had required Georgia and eight other states to get
federal approval before changing voting laws. That gave those states
the freedom to impose new restrictions.
The ACLU’s Young said Georgia’s recent voting restrictions have
been made in the name of preventing fraud. But she believes they’re
also born out of a desire to keep minorities from voting.
“It’s hard to see good faith in so many of these measures that
advocates repeatedly say have disproportionate impact on African-
Americans and other minorities,” she said.
Some of those restrictions predate Kemp.
In 2005 - five years before he took office - Georgia implemented
a law requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls. The Justice
Department approved it, but a court struck it down as an unconstitu
tional poll tax because it required voters to pay for IDs unless they
'could prove financial hardship. Lawmakers responded in 2006 by
revising the law to make it easier to get IDs for free.
In 2014, Kemp launched an investigation of a voting drive run by
a group that Abrams had started. The investigation eventually for
warded to law enforcement just 53 allegedly forged registrations out
of a total of 87,000, but critics said the probe disrupted the overall
registration drive.
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, which tracks voting is
sues nationally, said Georgia was among the most aggressive states
in the country in removing inactive voters from its registration rolls
between 2012 through this year. The stated purpose is to clear lists
of voters those who have moved or died, but the purges also can
mistakenly remove legitimate voters.
Data provided by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office show the
state removed more than 937,000 voters from the rolls from the start
of 2015 through Aug. 1 of this year.
Kemp also used an “exact match” policy for voter registrations. To
sign up, voters’ names and other information had to match precisely
how they appeared on other government databases. Kemp agreed to
end the practice amid litigation last year. But within months, legisla
tors put the policy into law.
As Election Day approached this year, it resulted in 53,000 vot
ers - most of them minorities - with their registrations on hold. Civil
rights groups sued while Kemp insisted those on the list could vote
if they brought to the polls a photo ID substantially matching the in
formation on file. Voters who failed to do so were to cast provisional
ballots.
Dr. Carlos del Rio, chairman of global health at Emory Universi
ty, said a poll worker at his precinct in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur
initially told him he was not registered. The issue: His voter registra
tion has a space between “del” and “Rio” in his last name, but his
driver’s license does not.
He had to explain to the poll worker that the state Department of
Driver Services does not allow for spaces in a name, and he was then
allowed to vote.
“It did require a little of me knowing how to defend my rights,”
del Rio said.
Bryan Sells, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who now
specializes in voting rights, has sued Kemp over the exact match
policy and other issues. He said Kemp and Georgia Republicans
have been targeted in the rules they have chosen to implement in
recent years.
Continued On Page 6)
H.M. “MICKEY” MICHAUX TALKS POLITICS, LEGACY -From left to right are Andre
Vann, NCCU and moderator for the program; Rep. H.M. “Mickey” Michaux and Zack Hawkins.
Hawkins challenge is to continue the legacy of Michaux. See page 8.
Dems: Latino and African-Americans
turnout up 157-174 percent over 2014
in early voting
By Alonso Lugo
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democratic Party says a $30 million investment in engaging Latino
and other minority voters helped the Democrats achieve a net gain of 34 House seats and improve on
2014 turnout numbers.
Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that in
early voting, compared to the previous midterm election, Latinos increased their participation by 174
percent in 2018 while Pacific Islanders increased their numbers by 218 percent and African-Americans
by 157 percent.
“Latino voters played a pivotal role in taking back the House,” Lujan told reporters during a confer
ence call organized by the political action committee Latino Victory to discuss the impact of the Latino
vote. “Evidence is clear: Early and active and robust outreach to communities of color - in this case,
into the Hispanic community - clearly pays off.”
Lujan, the first Hispanic to head the party’s arm focused on House races, said the engagement effort
included an investment of at least $21 million in Latino candidates and in 17 Spanish-language district
specific ads. His office also launched the first multistate Spanish-language TV ad the last week before
the election to get out the vote in the Latino community.
The Democrats targeted 111 Republican House congressional districts, 29 of which had at least a
10 percent Hispanic electorate.
Dan Sena, the DCCC executive director, said the polling company Latino Decisions conducted
nationwide focus groups to better identity the needs of Latino voters and to tailor a proper message.
“What we wanted was a real, organic way to engage Latino voters and Hispanic voters across the
country with a message that was positive and a reason to participate,” Sena said. “We did a fair amount
of studying how to create urgency without it feeling overtly heavy.”
During the campaign, President Donald Trump kept up a daily drumbeat of warnings about a cara
van of “bad thugs” and potential terrorists intent on invading the U.S. from Mexico. He suggested
sending up to 15,000 troops to the border to contain hundreds of Central American immigrants head
ing toward the southern U.S. border with the intention of claiming asylum.
Lujan highlighted the victory of Antonio Delgado in New York as an example of how a Latino
candidate won by keeping a positive message even when facing racist attacks.
Delgado, a Harvard Law School graduate and Rhodes scholar, defeated Republican Rep. John Faso
for a congressional seat representing the Hudson Valley. Republicans seized on his brief hip-hop ca
reer to portray Delgado, who is black, as unfit for office.
“Antonio did not get distracted by any of that. What he did was he talked to the American people
and the people of the 19th District of New York about the economic challenges that they are facing
every day,” Lujan said.
The Hispanic community will have a record level of representation on Capitol Hill with at least 42
members: 34 Democrats and eight Republicans in both chambers. One House race featuring a His
panic candidate has yet to be decided.
Harvard’s student newspaper elects 1st black woman leader
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard University’s student newspaper will be led by a black
woman for the first time in its 145-year history.
The Crimson announced this week that junior Kristine Guillaume was elected president of
the paper and will take over Jan. 1.
The 20-year-old Guillaume told The Associated Press she’s honored to be a part of history at
Harvard, which she said can feel “like a very white and male-dominated place.”
She added that she hopes her achievement helps other women of color feel that they belong
on the Ivy League campus.
The president is the top job at the paper, helping coordinate the news and business opera
tions. It’s elected by the previous year’s staff.
Guillaume, of New York City’s Queens neighborhood, is jointly studying African American
studies, and history and literature.
Supreme Court to hear Virginia GOP’s districting appeal
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court will hear an appeal by Virginia Republicans who are
trying to preserve state legislative districts that have been struck down by a lower court as racially dis
criminatory.
The court’s action Tuesday, Nov. 13, districts in the Virginia House of Delegates. Democratic voters
accused majority Republicans of packing black voters into certain districts to make surrounding districts
whiter and more Republican.
A three-judge federal court in Virginia ruled 2-1 in June in favor of the Democratic voters and has
appointed a redistricting expert to draw a new legislative map.
The Supreme Court already has ruled once in the case. Last year, the justices voted 7-1 to throw out
an earlier ruling that had upheld the challenged districts.
Republican
official tells
black woman
he belongs
to ‘master
race’
LEAVENWORTH, Kan.
(AP) - A white county
commissioner in northeast
Kansas said he belongs to
“the master race” as he cri
tiqued a land-use proposal
by a black city planner at a
board meeting.
According to the Kansas
City Star, he was appointed
by the Republican Party to
fill a vacancy.
Leavenworth County
Commissioner Louis K1-
emp cited the Nazi ideol
ogy of Aryan supremacy
Tuesday, Nov. 13 in re
sponse to the presentation
by Triveece Penelton on
road development options
in Tonganoxie, just west of
Kansas City.
Klemp told Penelton :
“We are part of the master
race, don’t you forget that.”
Commissioner Rob
ert Holland said he was
shocked by the comments
and that he wants Klemp to
resign before his term ends
Jan. 15.
Klemp told KSHB-TV
off camera that his com
ment was a joke.
Klemp, who once ran
for governor, has come un
der criticism in the past for
making racist comments.
School board
names building
after late Okla
homa NAACP
leader
OKLAHOMA CITY
(AP) - The Oklahoma City
School Board will name
its future administration
building after the woman
who organized civil rights
sit-ins to integrate city
businesses.
The board voted 7-0
Tuesday, Nov. 13 to name
the building The Clara Lu-
per Center for Educational
Services. It is scheduled to
open in 2019.
Luper was a long-time
teacher and leader of the
NAACP Youth Council who
led peaceful protests against
drugstores, helping end segre
gation at retailers in downtown
Oklahoma City.
Luper led the sit-ins in 1958,
preceding the 1960 demonstra
tions in Greensboro, North
Carolina, a defining moment of
the civil rights movement. Lu
per died in 2011 at 88.
The Tulsa-based Woody
Guthrie Center in August
awarded Luper and the group
its Oklahoma Changing World
Prize in honor of the 60th an
niversary of the local demon
strations.