Votes for Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams are being changed to votes for her Republican opponent Brian Kemp, according to a complaint filed by the Georgia NAACP. Salon reveals that the NAACP filed a complaint with Georgia’s Secretary of State office on Tuesday — saying that votes cast for Abrams were registered to Kemp by some voting machines in the state.
Eight voters told the NAACP that they noticed that their votes had been changed. One voter named Pamela Grimes said that she went to her polling place in Georgia and selected Abrams, but the machine marked the box for Kemp instead. She says that she had to clear the selection and try again several times before the machine finally registered her vote correctly.
Grimes says that if she hadn’t been focused on what she was doing, her vote would have been cast for the wrong person.
“We’ve experienced this before. They ended up taking these old dilapidated machines out of service. The ones giving the problems. They should have been replaced about 10 years ago,” said Phyllis Blake, president of the Georgia NAACP.
Georgia’s office for the Secretary of State is headed by Brian Kemp, which has raised concerns about a conflict of interest.
“If warranted, our office will open a formal investigation on behalf of the State Election Board,” spokeswoman for Kemp’s office, Candice Broce, said. “We always encourage voters to reach out to our office if they experience any issues or witness any suspicious activity at the polls.”
NAACP: Georgia votes for Democrat Stacey Abrams are being changed to Republican Brian Kemp https://t.co/V7asvRX7b4
— Salon (@Salon) October 24, 2018
Kemp has been accused of purging Democratic voters from the rolls in an attempt to bolster his own advantage in the polls, as the Inquisitr previously reported. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Kemp had blocked 53,000 voter registrations — 70 percent of which were for black voters. Reports also show that 1 in 10 Georgia voters have been removed from the rolls in 2017.
According to Salon , Georgia’s State Department, under Kemp, purged voters who were identified as having moved out of state or out of the congressional district. An investigation showed that these removals weren’t always accurate. One voter had moved from one side of her building to another.
The NAACP in Georgia has promised to keep an eye on this year’s election.
“The essence of our democracy is at stake,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said.
Your right to vote is yours. It is a right our ancestors fought and bled for. And right now, 13 days out, it is our duty to pick up the baton and continue the fight.
We will not be intimidated. We will vote like our future depends on it—because it does. https://t.co/1YZIpuom7Y pic.twitter.com/y3i01NrxwH
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) October 24, 2018
The NAACP in Georgia also has plans to file additional complaints in Georgia’s Henry and Cobb counties, where similar reports have been received about votes being changed from Abrams to Kemp.
