https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-trump-gop-voter-suppression-georgia_us_5bd88ba6e4b017e5bfd694a1?fbclid=IwAR2rFvLd-OJXcBHXrl4rVfEm4_ey0WaIauheDgWEfO4Tq4lypOEL6N9DLtg
"Today, in the midst of another election fight, the unearthly fear of democracy is once again terrorizing conservative politicians. And the state, led by President Donald Trump, is once again embracing white nationalism. As early as 2012, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that his party was “not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term,” and an “autopsy” of the GOP’s performance in that year’s elections confirmed the prognosis. The problem for Republicans is that as the party became increasingly racially and ideologically homogeneous, the electorate grew more and more diverse and comprised an ever larger share of potential voters. Even more chilling for the GOP, despite rampant voter suppression, which it has applied with “almost surgical precision,” black voter turnout has skyrocketed. Fueled in large measure by the work of civil society and African Americans’ disdain for Trump, black turnout in the 2017 Alabama Senate special election was 25 percent higher than it was in the 2016 election. The hard-core demographic facts of the GOP have tied the party into a Gordian knot: Republicans must advocate for democracy, but because of the party’s right-wing policies, their only path to victory requires undermining that very democracy. For example, Brian Kemp, the Georgia secretary of state and Republican candidate for governor, recently voiced concerns that his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams’ formidable voter registration efforts posed a considerable risk to his election ― “especially,” he remarked, “if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote.” He has done what he can ― purging voter rolls, putting tens of thousands of registrations in electoral limbo, shutting down polling places and opting not to update voting machines that are changing ballots cast for Abrams to votes for himself ― but he and Abrams are still in a statistical tie."
