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Senate Hearing Statement - 12/3/20
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 3, 2020

JOINT STATEMENT: Fair Fight and Allied Organizations Release Statement Rejecting GOP Conspiracies, Disinformation, and Undermining of Electoral Process

We should not allow free and fair elections in Georgia to be undermined by baseless and unproven claims of fraud. Those who have echoed election fraud conspiracies without evidence under the guise of “election integrity” for years have laid the groundwork for this culture of fear and intimidation. The Republican Party must shut down their disinformation narratives and conspiracy theories that are endangering the lives of Georgians.

Black and Brown voters in Georgia have been subjected to false claims of voter fraud and voter fraud disinformation tactics for decades in attempts to intimidate, suppress, and depress voter participation, which has caused evergreen fear in these communities of being arrested or punished for using their constitutional right to participate in our democracy. Here in Georgia, our Republican elected officials have consistently and directly fed voter fraud narratives and fears for political purposes. Worse, they have used those narratives to push the prosecution and intimidation of voters of color specifically, including raiding Asian-American-led voter registration offices, sending police officers to Black voters’ homes in Sparta, and incarcerating Black voters in Quitman. The Georgia Secretary of State office’s long and shameful history of abusing its power to intimidate and suppress political opponents must end.

The current GOP created this democracy disinformation propaganda strategy as a way to suppress enough votes on the margins to try and win the November election. But this cynical and dangerous strategy backfired on them, infecting their own party and voters. Trump’s deputy campaign manager, Justin Clark, over a year ago clearly laid out the plan to intentionally escalate and broadcast small issues or mistakes that election administrators or voters made as “evidence” of widespread voter fraud.

We will continue to fight back against baseless and blatantly partisan attempts to undermine voting rights and restrict ballot access. Widespread voter fraud is a malicious myth. Voter suppression, however, is real, and we must not allow conspiracy-bloated narratives to inflict unnecessary and harmful restrictions on voting. Voters have spoken, and we must not allow bad actors to undermine the legitimacy of our system and incite dangerous rhetoric and threats against election officials, election workers, advocates, and voters.

We, the undersigned, reject the conspiracies and disinformation spread by those who seek to undermine our democratic process for partisan gain. Plainly put, any official who acts to legitimize these baseless attacks through shameful efforts or self-serving silence is complicit in an architecture of voter suppression and propaganda.

Signed,

Fair Fight

Poder Latinx

Georgia Equality

Georgia Conservation Voters

Showing Up for Racial Justice

Georgia NAACP

Mijente

Step Up Savannah

Partnership for Southern Equity

Indivisible Georgia Coalition

Progress Georgia

Represent Georgia Action Network, Inc.

Georgia AFL-CIO

NARAL Pro-Choice Georgia

Working Families Party

American Federation of Teachers

Black Voters Matter

Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights

GALEO Impact Fund, Inc.

Advancement Project National Office

SEIU

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Background:

In 1946, Georgia gubernatorial candidate Eugene Talmadge orchestrated challenges en masse to black voters in more than 30 counties due to alleged fraud. These challenges resulted in up to 25,000 black GA voters being purged. (A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia, pages 52-53, 2003)

As much as this may seem like a relic of the past, Black and Brown Georgians have been consistently and routinely targeted by erroneous, dangerous voter fraud claims.