Today, Fair Fight announced a statewide campaign to defeat House Bill 316 and promote hand-marked paper ballots. The voting rights group will activate its robust statewide network of activists to urge legislators to oppose the bill.
“With so much at stake, our supporters across Georgia are fighting back against this horrible bill,” said Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo. “Fair Fight will be leveraging all available resources to make sure that lawmakers hear from their constituents – not just the for-profit voting machine companies that employ Brian Kemp’s advisor as a lobbyist.”
Fair Fight’s campaign will include social media efforts, crowd-building at the Georgia State Capitol, an SMS push, radio ads, and a television ad encouraging Georgians to contact Governor* Brian Kemp.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTmCWPfNPvQ]Georgians who testified to the General Assembly last week were universally in favor of hand-marked paper ballots. A packed hearing of the Government Affairs Elections Subcommittee had an additional 91 people viewing from an overflow room above.
Sponsored by Fleming and supported by Kemp, House Bill 316 would exacerbate the voting irregularities of the 2018 election by forcing Georgia to use unreliable voting machines and causing longer lines on Election Day. The bill defies the will of Georgia voters and ignores security experts who have said that voting machines are vulnerable to hacking. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed that Georgians overwhelmingly prefer hand-marked paper ballots. Governor Kemp’s budget would reward a $150 million taxpayer funded contract to a voting machine company — likely the same company that employed his deputy chief of staff as a lobbyist.