Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Amaryllis

(9,524 posts)
Sun Jun 18, 2017, 10:33 PM Jun 2017

As GA SOS, Karen Handel was subject of fed lawsuit by ACLU & DOJ action for voter suppression

This is really important! This is a repost of a thread by Diva77 from Friday that didn't get much attention and is critical info going into Ossoff election.
Karen Handel has a long history of voter suppression and and knows every trick to "win" an election.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029216234

I have copied all info below from Diva77's post as it's too late for this to make latest or greatest:

Handel was the first elected Republican secretary of state in Georgia history.
Soon after taking office as Georgia Secretary of State, Handel began a project to purge voter rolls.

Soon after taking office as Georgia Secretary of State, Handel began a project to purge voter rolls. The voter verification procedure matched five criteria provided by new voter registration applicants with information in the Georgia Department of Driver Services database or the Social Security Administration database. Some eligible voters were told that they were "non-citizens" although in fact they were citizens. Voter suppression allegations were raised and the rule became the subject of a federal lawsuit by the ACLU of Georgia and MALDEF, which accused Handel's office of engaging in a "systematic purging procedure" expressly barred by federal law within 90 days of an elections.

In 2009, the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (DOJ) ordered a halt to the state's "voter verification" effort (denying it approval under the Voting Rights Act of 1965), determining that "thousands of citizens who are in fact eligible to vote under Georgia law have been flagged" and that the program was "flawed ... frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote. This marked the first time since the 1990s that the Justice Department had denied approval to a change in Georgia election practice.

Handel defended her program, asserting that it was appropriate and necessary. A federal judge in Atlanta later dismissed a lawsuit that had accused Handel's successor, Secretary of State Brian Kemp of illegally bumping Georgia voters off the state's rolls ahead of the 2016 presidential election. In the 21-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. said the state had taken a "reasonable and nondiscriminatory" approach in trying to reach voters who had not cast a ballot within the past 7 years to confirm their addresses....snip

So she's like the Katherine Harris of Georgia...we need a LANDSLIDE for Ossoff to win!!!! SERIOUSLY!!! (For anyone who may not know, Katherine Harris was the SOS in FL who engaged in massive voter suppression which is credited in part for helping Bush "win" FL. )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Handel

13 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

L. Coyote

(51,129 posts)
1. Katherine Harris was SoS in Florida 2000, nor Georgia.
Sun Jun 18, 2017, 10:36 PM
Jun 2017

Katherine Harris is a politician, elected in 1998 as Secretary of State of Florida and in 2002 to the United States House of Representatives from Florida. Wikipedia

Amaryllis

(9,524 posts)
2. I know that and so does Diva77 who said she was the Katherine Harris of GA. Not that
Sun Jun 18, 2017, 10:39 PM
Jun 2017

Katherine Harris was the GA SOS. I added a note to make that more clear.

elleng

(130,895 posts)
3. These elected Secretaries of State are something else!
Sun Jun 18, 2017, 10:48 PM
Jun 2017

Think Ohio: Husted.  Ohio Keeps Making It Harder to Vote. https://www.thenation.com/article/ohio-keeps-making-it-harder-to-vote/

Kobach. Kris Kobach, the ‘King of Voter Suppression,’ Will Lead Trump’s Sham Voter Fraud Commission. Be Afraid, Very Afraid.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/kris-kobach-king-voter-suppression-will-lead-trumps-sham-voter-fraud-commission-be

And handel!

Amaryllis

(9,524 posts)
4. Not to mention Ken Blackwell OH 2004. He is either on or being considered for (don't
Sun Jun 18, 2017, 10:50 PM
Jun 2017

remember which) Trump's votor fraud commission, headed up by Kris Kobach.

Amaryllis

(9,524 posts)
7. I think Katherine HArris was the beginning. That gave them Bush 2000 and Blackwell gave us
Sun Jun 18, 2017, 10:57 PM
Jun 2017

Bush 2004, and then we got the Bush SCOTUS, and that gave us Citizens United, and ... need I say more? I don't want to depress everyone.

Ilsa

(61,695 posts)
10. She had the attorneys go after a machine technician after
Sun Jun 18, 2017, 11:05 PM
Jun 2017

it was discovered there was something wrong, as in sinister, with the devices, even though the tech had nothing to do with it. The tech eventually cleared her name.

Amaryllis

(9,524 posts)
12. And hopefully the Ossoff team is alerted. If he loses, he needs to demand a forensic audit of the
Mon Jun 19, 2017, 12:27 PM
Jun 2017

election; voting machines and tabulators.

diva77

(7,640 posts)
13. which reminds me of the Princeton study of the Diebold machines GA uses - bad news
Mon Jun 19, 2017, 12:39 PM
Jun 2017
https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/evt07/tech/full_papers/feldman/feldman_html/index.html

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine
Ariel J. Feldman*, J. Alex Halderman*, and Edward W. Felten*,†
* Center for Information Technology Policy and Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University
† Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Abstract

snip...This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election activities—a voting-machine virus. We have constructed working demonstrations of these attacks in our lab. Mitigating these threats will require changes to the voting machine's hardware and software and the adoption of more rigorous election procedures...snip
Latest Discussions»General Discussion»As GA SOS, Karen Handel w...