Failed Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler has started a voter registration and voter integrity group to rival failed Georgia Democrat Stacy Abrahams voter registration and voter access group.
The history
Democrat Stacy Abrams ran for Governor of Georgia in 2018 and lost to Republican Brian Kemp by about 55,000 votes. Finally acknowledging that she “didn’t win”, Abrams maintained that she “didn’t lose” as a way of expressing her belief in conspiracy theories that voter suppression and voter integrity laws cost her the title that she otherwise legitimately won from the voters (Abrams never conceded). After the defeat, Abrams went and did something about it and started two organizations to increase Democrat voter registration and attack Georgia voter fraud prevention laws to get them changed in a more favorable direction for Democrats. Her efforts succeeded and she is largely credited for Biden winning Georgia in the 2020 presidential election and both Democrat candidates for senate winning their runoff elections two months later.
Republican Kelly Loeffler was appointed to the senate by the victor in Stacy Abrams losing race for Governor, Brian Kemp, in 2019. The sitting senator Johnny Isakson announced that he would resign at the end of that year, citing health reasons, and in accordance with Georgia law, the Governor appoints a replacement to that senatorial term. Conservatives and President Donald Trump wanted Georgia Representative Doug Collins, who helped lead the House opposition to Trump’s first failed impeachment by Democrats but Governor Kemp chose businesswoman Kelly Loeffler who would have to defend the seat in the next years election in where both Georgia senate seats would be on the ballot. In November 2020, both Republicans, Loeffler and Perdue, won reelection, however, Georgia election law (along with 9 other states) dictates that candidates must get a minimum of 50 percent of the votes to be declared winners, and neither of the winning Republicans cleared that 50% hurdle due to multiple Republicans on the ballot splitting their vote. That triggered a runoff in January 2021 where the two senate seats got voted on again – and this time – both Republicans who won 2 months prior, lost to both Democrat opponents. Some key lies about the Republican candidates lyingly spread by their opponents and un-checked on the same social media outlets that just weeks prior were treating election misinformation as an issue they needed to correct, but those types of smears abetted by big corporations are typical. What was atypical of this election was the Republican stupidity in mixing their messages about the alleged fraud in the presidential election with a failed organized Get-out-the-vote effort as well as the most vocal lawyer fighting on behalf of investigation of the 2020 fraud claims condemning the Republican senate candidates. Regardless of the big tech election interference, Democratic smears, and Republican in-fighting idiocy, Stacy Abrams efforts in new voter registration and Georgian election law changes were again credited with the Democrats historic victory.
Loeffler’s new Georgia Voter Org
After Loeffler’s loss, I wondered if she would be useless and go back to the business world or if she would do exactly-this and try to do something about the reasons she thinks she lost. One month later and she has done the latter, starting an organization to promote election integrity and make future elections in the state more secure.
Loeffler’s organizations main goals will be doing the reverse of Abrhams Leftist group.
Abram’s organization, New Georgia Project (NGP), was founded to register Leftist and Democrat-leaning voters. Abrams other group “Fair Fight” was founded on the premise that rules around vote integrity are actually Democrat-voter suppression and focuses on challenging election laws and procedures to relax voting securities and other barriers.
Loeffler’s group “Greater Georgia” was founded on the premise that Democratic legal victories around voting rules are Republican-voter suppression and will focus on registering “conservative-leaning” voters and seek to promote “election transparency and uniformity”.
The objective of Loeffler’s Greater Georgia is to assure Georgians “that their voices are heard when they cast their ballot,” Loeffler said in a statement referencing the accusations of cheating and fraud around the Georgia 2021 runoff election.
Next move?
Due to the resignation that spawned Loeffler’s senate appointment, her opponent Raphael Warnock was only elected to the remaining time in that senate seats term, so instead of serving a full 6 year first time, Warnock will have to defend his seat again in the 2022 midterm election. Loeffler has not stated whether she will file to run against him in a rematch. Hopefully she won’t, since she was a terrible senator but she hasn’t ruled it out.
At the time of this writing, the Democrat who bested her in the election is being investigated for voter registration fraud for actions taken as board chairman for New Georgia Project, Stacey Abrams’ voter registration organization, in 2019. The Georgia State Election Board voted unanimously to investigate the allegations against Warnock and the Abrams group under evidence that it did not follow election law guidelines and further, “sought to register ineligible, out-of-state, or deceased voters”.
Loeffler’s group says it wants to expand voter registration to more communities with plans to reach out to groups that aren’t traditional Republican allies and reform elections by removing secretive fraud-shielding practices and policies with transparency measures and reforms as well bringing uniformity to elections so that county by county standards don’t differ so widely, which confuses voters and provides another shield for fraud in elections.
In response, Stacy Abrams just smears her new competition in the most bad-faith nonsensical botching of a clapback one could imagine.
Abrams, enjoying the victories of her hard work in turning Georgia blue with the support of key corporate press assistance in legitimizing her election conspiracy theories, denounced Loeffler’s group as a “conspiracy theory” itself… Of course. The incoherence of the condemnation is something to note in its own right. Abrams said on CNN:
“It’s deeply disheartening that a former US Senator would spend her time and her resources to publicly engage in the type of conspiracy theories that say that only certain Americans should be valued. That’s what Kelly Loeffler is proposing.”
That’s obviously not anything similar to anything that resembles what Loeffler is proposing, but it also doesn’t make any sense. It was delivered in a live interview on tv, so it’s probable that Abrams merely botched the prepared talking point and, one assumes, meant to allude to conspiracy theories about Georgian voter fraud in both the 2020 and 2021 elections. Instead, Abrams called “only believing certain Americans should be valued” a “conspiracy theory”, which… might be a theory someone somewhere has (though it’s not something Loeffler’s group ever said or implied but expressly states the opposite of) but lacks any “conspiracy”. Unless Abrams maybe meant to have said that Loeffler is conspiring to make some Americans valued less? Which would make Abrams the theorist and Loeffler the conspirer… who knows man.
It will be interesting to see how these dueling politicians and their competing voter organizations play out in the political theaters coming up.