Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

by Stacey Abrams

In Georgia, the secretary of state, Brian Kemp, accused me and New Georgia Project of committing fraud due to the sheer volume of people of color who registered through our statewide effort. As proof, his team cited the number of applications with false or inaccurate information. However, as a protection against actual fraud or cherry-picking voters, Georgia law requires the submission of all collected forms, even if Mickey Mouse filled it out. His team refused to explain why nearly half our applications were never processed. Rather, he announced to a GOP gathering about New Georgia Project and other groups, “Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November.”6 Our ambitious project began the tough work of bringing hundreds of thousands out of the shadows and into the electorate. In response, we faced attacks from the secretary of state, who refused to put our eligible applicants on the rolls by Election Day 2014.