In election news, Georgia secretary of state and Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp announced plans Sunday to investigate Georgia’s Democratic Party for “cyber crimes” related to an alleged attempted hack of the voter registration system. Kemp’s office provided no evidence for the claim, which has been denied by the Georgia Democratic Party. This came just two days before the midterm elections, when Kemp will face off against Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, who could become the country’s first African-American woman governor if she wins.
On Friday, a federal judge barred Georgia from rejecting ballots that don’t conform to the strict “exact match” rules, where even a minor discrepancy in a voter’s ID and their voter registration could prevent someone from voting. As secretary of state, Kemp has been withholding some 53,000 voter application forms, more than 70 percent of which are from African Americans. President Jimmy Carter and others have called on Kemp to recuse himself as secretary of state while he runs for governor of Georgia, since the secretary of state oversees the elections.