Running Scared: Georgia’s Democrats have registered more than 85,000 minority voters (and

[Scuba]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/09/stacey_abrams_new_georgia_project_shocks_georgia_s_gop_republicans_fighting.html?wpsrc=sh_all_tab_tw_bot

In 2008, under the best possible conditions for a Democrat, Barack Obama lost Georgia by just over 200,000 votes, or 5.2 percent of Georgians who voted. Four years later he lost again by just over 300,000 votes, or 7.8 percent of Georgians who voted. By any measure the state is a reach for Democrats. And yet, the party is optimistic, both now—Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter, its Senate and gubernatorial candidates, respectively, are running close races—and for the future.

The “why” is easy to answer: Georgia has roughly 700,000 unregistered black voters. If Democrats could cut that number by less than a third—and bring nearly 200,000 likely Democrats to the polls—they would turn a red state purple, and land a major blow to the national Republican Party. Or, as Michelle Obama said during a campaign rally on Monday, “If just 50 Democratic voters per precinct who didn’t vote in 2010 get out and vote this November—just 50 per precinct—then Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter will win.” Given 2,727 precincts in Georgia, that’s just 136,350 new voters.

Enter the New Georgia Project. Led by Stacey Abrams, Democratic leader in the state House of Representatives, the project is meant to do just that—register hundreds of thousands of blacks and other minorities. Their goal, says Abrams, is to “directly or indirectly collect 120,000 voter registration applications.” That could be enough to push Democrats over the top. And it makes the project one of the largest voter registration drives in recent Georgia history.

So far, it’s been a success. “In addition to the 85,000 we have collected as an organization directly,” says Abrams, “we have also supported the efforts of 12 organizations around the state. We know there are groups doing registration in the Latino community, in the Asian community, and in the youth community, and we wanted to support their efforts as well.” These groups, she says, have collected 20,000 to 25,000 applications, putting the New Georgia Project in striking distance of its goal two months before Election Day.

[merrily]

1. For Democrats, registering voters is running smart.

For Republicans, disenfranchisement is running scared.

While the Democrats held both Houses of Congress and the White House, I wish they had made interfering with clean, fair federal elections in any way a major felony, then dared Senate Republicans to filibuster it. (I realize that wording is much too vague for a law, but I am not trying to draft a law, just trying to convey a concept.)

[rickford66]

2. But why do they always seem to wait until the last moment?