Georgia Governor-Elect Brian Kemp Might Be Even More Corrupt Than You Thought
Days before the election, Kemp accused Democrats of attempting to hack the state’s election systems. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found that the “evidence” for this claim is a single forwarded e-mail.
By Jay Willis
December 17, 2018
In the days leading up to Georgia’s hotly contested 2018 gubernatorial election, Brian Kemp—who, you may recall, is both the winner of that election and also the state official who was in charge of administering it—made a shocking accusation about the Democratic Party of Georgia and, by extension, his opponent, Stacey Abrams. They had, he said, attempted to hack into the state’s voter-registration database, and his office planned to launch an investigation into this serious case of misconduct.
Kemp learned that a media outlet planned to publish a story on the subject, he did what all self-respecting Republicans do when confronted with evidence of their failures: panic, and blame someone else. Minutes before it posted, the secretary of state’s website posted an all-caps headline announcing a forthcoming investigation into a “FAILED HACKING ATTEMPT” by Democrats. Kemp’s spokesperson began talking about Rachel Small, who is part of this narrative because she forwarded an e-mail, as if she should be considered armed and extremely dangerous by anyone who approaches her.
A few days later, Kemp won the election with 50.2 percent of the vote, narrowly avoiding the prospect of a runoff with Abrams. Strangely, since the result became official, Kemp’s office seems to have forgotten all about the investigation it had vowed to conduct, back when breaking the news of said investigation was politically expedient.
https://www.gq.com/story/brian-kemp-ajc-investigation
The Biggest Story Nobody’s Talking About: The Recall Of Brian Kemp
Nov 9, 2017
The great state of Georgia has been contending with its own corruption, incompetence and negligence from Secretary of State Brian Kemp, whose actions have undermined voting systems, election security and democracy in general. The difference at the state level, however, is that there is a mechanism by which the people can expel an elected official. And in Georgia there is a robust effort underway. A non-partisan group called A Voice For All Georgia has started a recall petition. And the success or failure of this effort has implications for all Americans.
According to John Ziegler, leader of A Voice For All Georgia’s recall effort: “In Georgia, the Secretary of State is responsible for the administration of secure, accessible, and fair elections. This responsibility isn’t a suggestion – it’s the fundamental job description. As voters, we should expect our votes to count and our information to be handled with integrity.”
But Ziegler says that Kemp has done the opposite. Here is a list of his alleged infractions and examples of gross negligence (links embedded). Under Kemp’s tenure:
Georgia’s elections data has been breached. Twice. Once in August 2016, and again in March 2017. Following the breaches, Kemp refused assistance from the Department of Homeland Security and 20 computer scientists, while ignoring concerns of election integrity advocates and local citizens.
The state’s electronic voting machines received an ‘F-’ rating by The Free Congress Foundation and Verified Voting. Nevertheless, Kemp has continuously refused to ask the State Legislature for funds to update the voting system. Current machines can be hacked within minutes, haven’t been updated since 2005 and run on Windows 2000.
Kemp insisted on using this outdated, hackable infrastructure in the June runoff between Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel for Tom Price’s vacated House seat, despite the known breaches, faulty equipment, and theft of electronic polling books that contained voter data.
On July 3, 2017, a group of electoral reform advocates filed a lawsuit to force the state to retire its antiquated touch-screen voting machines. On July 7 (four days later), the election servers which would have provided critical information for the lawsuit were wiped clean. The people who wiped the servers ultimately answer to Secretary of State Kemp.
Kemp’s office twice leaked voter information, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license data. Kemp admitted, as part of the settlement of a lawsuit, that his office leaked the voter information. The state agreed to pay $1.2 million for a year’s worth of credit monitoring for millions of Georgians.
Kemp failed to properly handle and process voter registrations in 2014, when his office lost voter registrations for 40,000 Georgians - the vast majority of whom happened to be people of color.
In a shocking and telling move last week, the Assistant Attorney General of the State of Georgia announced that the AG’s office would not defend Kemp or the State in the “wiped server” lawsuit filed on July 3.