In addition to the focus on swing states, Abrams is said to bring her ballot-access efforts to three conservative states with upcoming governor's races, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky. Abrams blames her narrow loss for Georgia governor on widespread voter suppression, and her group filed a lawsuit that seeks to overhaul the state’s election system, claiming that it impaired people’s ability to vote in the gubernatorial election and deprived them of their constitutional rights under the First, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Your Privacy Controls. But with ongoing efforts by Republican state lawmakers to pass more restrictive voting laws, Groh-Wargo said, it was important that Democrats start working now to be ready to help voters navigate potential hurdles. Abrams, speaking at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Las Vegas, announced a 20-state voter protection initiative, using her experience challenging voting laws during her gubernatorial campaign last year in Georgia, which included widespread irregularities. Stacey Abrams at Fair Fight's headquarters outside Atlanta. The organization hires, pays for, and trains staff for state Democratic parties, and keeps in touch with them as they do their work. Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. She said candidates are paying attention to Georgia, and most have acknowledged that voter suppression is a serious concern that must be addressed. Abrams is a newly prominent figure within a Democratic Party that has struggled to coalesce around an individual leader. Fair Fight 2020 is building voter protection teams with Democratic state parties or local allies across the country to protect the right to vote–and we’re starting now. HuffPost is part of Verizon Media. Her unlikely campaign against Kemp during the 2018 elections garnered outsize national attention, with many looking to the race as a bellwether for broader political sentiment across the country.

But despite her defeat, Abrams, and national Democrats, are proactively challenging voter suppression and election reform at the state and local level, as the GOP-controlled Senate stalls on taking up significant measures to address the issue in Washington, most recently last month, despite top experts sounding the alarm on election security. 202-662-7500, Copyright 2020 - The National Press Club • Privacy Policy & Terms of Service.

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Johnson thinks it's part of a broader strategy to curtail voting rights. What do voters struggle with? There, they are helping the state party create a hotline for voters to call with voting questions year-round, instead of just before the election. Peresman has been a voting rights advocate for nearly 20 years and was a leader in the group that successfully shepherded a ballot initiative that changed voting laws, such as allowing same-day registration. Abrams focused on mobilizing a broad coalition of voters, including those who usually skip midterm elections, and garnered more votes than any Democrat running statewide in Georgia.

The Georgia Democratic Party, which employs a full-time voter protection director, worked closely with the Abrams campaign during the gubernatorial election.

She says they've invested more than $1 million and sent dozens of staffers into 18 states to ramp up Democratic voting rights infrastructure — things such as establishing voter hotlines and creating voter protection teams to be in place for the primaries so they can prepare for the general election. “I’m going to use energies and my very, very loud voice to raise the money we need to train [people] across the country in our 20 battleground states to make sure that Donald Trump and the Senate take a hike and we put people in place who know what we need,” Abrams said. Fair Fight 2020; Donate Now; ... Fair Fight brings awareness to the public on election reform, advocates for election reform at all levels, and engages in other voter education programs and communications. Sign up today to ensure that 2020 is a Fair Fight.

The committee has also increased its monthly investment in every state party by an average of 33% versus this point in 2015 -- leading up to the 2016 campaign. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? The initiative will enact voter-protection programs directly and invest in local fundraising efforts. Stacey Abrams' autograph in the National Press Club guest book: "Delighted to be in the space that protects the 1st amendment by word and deed.". He says Abrams' success is drawing attention.

"In the wake of the election, my mission was to figure out what work could I do, even if I didn't have the title of governor," Abrams says. "We promote fair elections in Georgia and around the country, encourage voter participation in elections, and educate voters about elections and their voting rights.". The investment is part of a broad voter protection campaign -- signaling their commitment to safeguarding the integrity of U.S. elections. Absolutely. The new effort, part of the Democratic National Committee's sweeping early investments targeting states that will likely define the outcome of the presidential race, coincides with the fifth Democratic debate, hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post in Atlanta on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. “I think we could see a new level of intimidation and intentional confusion,” she said. Critics say Fair Fight is a vehicle for Abrams' political aspirations. "We are in the mission of making sure our full citizenry can vote," Groh-Wargo says. hide caption. See why nearly a quarter of a million subscribers begin their day with the Starting 5. For its part, the DNC's most recent battleground investments are part of a far-reaching campaign to build up voter protection infrastructures through education, advocacy and organizing resources, and by backing four lawsuits related to ballot order in Arizona, Texas, Georgia and Florida. 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor She also noted that the 2020 election will be the first since the Republican National Committee was released from a federal consent decree that for more than three decades had limited its “ballot security” activities, including monitoring polling places to prevent voter fraud. In addition to the political action committee, Fair Fight also has an operation focused on voter education and advocacy, as well as Fair Count, which will work to make sure people of color and those living in rural communities take part in next year’s census. Similarly, some states, such as Michigan and Nevada, have recently passed laws to expand access to voting, and party leaders and activists in those states need to make sure voters can take advantage of the changes. Kemp, as Georgia's then-secretary of state, was allowed to oversee an election in which he was a candidate. Debbie Elliott/NPR “The Democratic Party and those who care about free and fair elections need to be prepared. “We’re going to have a fair fight in 2020 because my mission is to make certain that no one has to go through in 2020 what we went through in 2018,” Abrams said. The program was one operation, and the story has been corrected. Sitting around a table in a union hall in Madison Heights, Fair Fight’s trio of 30-somethings talked elections law, data collection and communicating with voters and elections officials during two days of meetings.

In past election cycles, campaigns and state parties tended to wait until the start of general election campaigning to put together voter protection programs, which were often dismantled after elections.

She noted that Tennessee recently passed a law that makes it harder for churches and other community groups to conduct voter registration drives. A judge ruled in May that the case could go forward. An organization created by former Georgia House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams after she narrowly lost an election last year for the governor  is currently working in 17 battleground states to “make sure every eligible American who should cast a vote will be able,” Abrams told a Nov. 15 National Press Club Headliners luncheon. Political scientist Andra Gillespie of Emory University says a lot of national groups are doing voting rights work, but Fair Fight stands out because it has been able to use the energy around Abram's electoral defeat to try to reap benefits for other Democrats in this election cycle.

The Latest Battle over Georgia voting rights escalates in federal court Article excerpt: U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled against the state […] To enable Verizon Media and our partners to process your personal data select 'I agree', or select 'Manage settings' for more information and to manage your choices. A Reuters analysis found that more than two-thirds of voters whose applications were languishing on the state's "pending" list due to "exact match" requirements were black. She lost the election by fewer than 55,000 votes. “As our team has traveled the country, two things have stood out: first, Democrats and our allies want and need to strengthen their voter protection programs. "This is something that has been going on in Georgia long before Republicans were in charge in Georgia.". In addition, she said, her group received more than  80,000 calls from people reporting problems they faced when they tried to register or vote.

Democrats' strategy to win the majority in the U.S. Senate runs in part through the Peach State in 2020, with two potentially competitive Senate elections slated for next year, including one open seat after the resignation of longtime GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson due to health concerns. The groups also took elections officials to court during and after the election to restore people to the voting rolls, to keep polling places open or to force officials to count ballots they said had been wrongly disqualified. The state that's home to the upcoming presidential debate is trending less and less red in part due to the underlying "shifting demographics" in and around Georgia's urban centers, according to Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta.

State parties are the only entities that are permitted to be in the polling place and able to monitor what is happening from registration to voting, she explained. You have 4 free articles remaining this month, Sign-up to our daily newsletter for more articles like this + access to 5 extra articles. Lauren Groh-Wargo, chief executive of Fair Fight and Abrams’s former campaign manager, said Abrams wants to help Democrats be more prepared to respond to the kinds of widespread irregularities that characterized the Georgia gubernatorial race, including inaccurate voter rolls, shortages of voting machines and provisional ballots, and a lack of uniform rules for counting absentee ballots. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell approved an additional $250 million to help states with election security gearing up for 2020, but Democrats argue it is not nearly enough. Correction: An earlier version of this story said the Georgia Democratic Party and the Abrams campaign both ran voter protection programs.

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