MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson jumped the gun on Tuesday afternoon, claiming that the election results in Georgia would not be fair before the polls had even closed in that state.
Johnson claimed that voter suppression in Georgia was far worse than it had been in 2018, arguing that Governor Brian Kemp (R) and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) had put policies into place that would keep people from voting.
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MSNBC Contributor:
“The level of voter suppression [in Georgia] is beyond anything that we saw in 2018…We can’t say that whatever happens tonight is a fair and equitable election.” pic.twitter.com/BataCvchTf
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 8, 2022
“In the state of Georgia, thanks to Brian Kemp and Raffensperger, they changed the state law so that you cannot get a provisional ballot in Georgia before 5 o’clock,” Johnson began. “So if you waited in line for two and a half hours, got there, and they said, ‘Oh, there’s some sort of mistake,’ you can’t get a provisional ballot here.”
“The level of voter suppression is beyond anything that we saw in 2018, so I think it’s completely up in the air,” he continued. “There has been youth turnout at levels we haven’t expected. Democrats feel confident, Republicans I’ve spoken to feel confident. But we can’t say that whatever happens tonight is a fair and equitable election because there have been too many laws passed by election deniers to keep people from being able to express themselves.”
The provisional ballot rule Johnson mentioned, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, applies to voters who are registered in the county where they are trying to vote, but are attempting to vote at the wrong precinct. Provisional ballots can be filed at the wrong precinct after 5 p.m. — but the voters can also choose to leave the wrong precinct and cast a standard ballot at the correct precinct at any time during polling place hours.
Second-time Georgia gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams (D) has also spoken out ahead of the election, claiming that the record turnout in early voting did nothing to assuage her fears that voter suppression was still happening on a grand scale.
