Stacey Abrams, Joy Reid decry Georgia 'voter suppression' despite record turnout: 'There is no correlation'
Left-wing MSNBC host Joy Reid and Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams joined forces Monday to decry "voter suppression" across the state despite record early turnout from voters in this year's primary elections.
Left-wing MSNBC host Joy Reid and Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams joined forces Monday to decry "voter suppression" across the state despite record early turnout from voters in this year's primary elections.
While sitting down for an interview with Reid on MSNBC's "The ReidOut," Abrams oddly claimed there was "no correlation" between the record high turnout and less voter suppression, and that arguing such was like saying "if more people are in the water there are fewer sharks."
Reid also fretted over a number of liberal media outlets reporting on the high turnout, claiming they were helping Republicans push "a new big lie" that Georgia's "suppressive" new election integrity law was actually "not suppressive at all."
MSNBC's Joy Reid interviews Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on May 23, 2022 ahead of the state's primary elections. (Screenshot/MSNBC)
Reid began the interview by claiming Georgia had "become ground zero for voter suppression" because of its new law, which she dubbed "Jim Crow version 2.0."
"Republicans, with the help from some in the political press, are now using the huge turnout in the primaries so far to push a new big lie: That the record turnout, which is mainly from Republican primary voters, means that Georgia's suppressive voter law isn’t suppressive at all," she said, showing various headlines on the screen from liberal outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post reporting on the high turnout.
She then suggested Democrats, "the voters [the law] was meant to hurt," weren't showing up to vote in contested primaries, but didn't provide context or evidence to support the suggestion.
"I feel like a narrative is sort of congealing among much of the political press, that comes from Republicans, but it is settling in, even amongst some folks in my profession that because lots of people turned out … that means that there is no voter suppression in Georgia," Reid said.
"But I note … that it’s largely, you know, substantially more Republicans," she added. "They are not the ones who have long lines. They get to breeze right through. They are not the ones who have suppression."
U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) arrives at a Fulton County polling station to cast his ballot in the general primary election in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. May 6, 2022. (REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage)
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Abrams responded with her shark analogy and said, "There’s no correlation there. Voter suppression is about blocking or impeding certain types of voters from participating in elections."
"Right now Republicans have the most competitive elections, but what we also don’t know is what is the mail-in ballot rejection rate? What are the difficulties people are having?" she said.
Abrams went on to complain about some of the intricacies of the new law, as well as those using "one metric," meaning the high voter turnout numbers, to form "a narrative" that there is no voter suppression.
"Voter suppression is not about stopping voting, it is about impeding certain voters from participating, and those voters, as you pointed out, are unlikely to be highly active in a primary," she said.
Stacey Abrams, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, during a 'One Georgia Tour' campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., on Monday, March 14, 2022. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Despite her argument that increased turnout had nothing to do with a lack of voter suppression, and that Democrats weren't voting in their primaries, Abrams claimed she was "seeing outrage driving voters of color to the polls."
She then appeared to contradict her argument by oddly adding that "the antidote to voter suppression" was "voter turnout."
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"They are going to try to make it hard, so the more of us who show up, we overwhelm the system with our presence, but to let them off of the hook for what they've done, simply because they didn't do it as well as they thought is, I think, nonsensical," Abrams said.