Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who refused to concede after her 2018 loss to Gov. Brian Kemp, wants the For the People Act to expand the franchise and combat the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential contest was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
Abrams, whose voting organization Fair Fight Action is implementing a “Hot Call Summer” initiative asking supporters to call U.S. senators and urge them to pass H.R. 1, known as the For the People Act, said the newly approved voting laws aimed at promoting election integrity in several GOP-led states have three anti-democratic goals.
“One, they’re anti-voter. They’re designed to stop voters that the Republicans found inconvenient in this last election. … Number two, these are anti-election worker bills. They are designed to get good people to abandon their post, to criminalize those who still want to do their job, and to replace them with those who will undermine the administration of elections. And three, they are designed to subvert democracy,” she told MSNBC’s Joy Reid Monday night.
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The Georgia Democrat said these bills intend to “convince voters that it is not worth the effort” and to “convince those who want to believe the big lie that there is something in it for them on the other side, that if they break down democracy, they get something better on the other side.” She called these processes a form of “autocracy.”
Abrams urged viewers to participate in “Hot Call Summer,” saying senators need to know “they cannot withstand the force of the American people when we decide to protect our democracy” in the form of the For the People Act.
“That’s why we are doing Hot Call Summer and why we are reaching out to every single senator, calling on each of them to do their job and pass the For the People Act,” she continued.
The For the People Act, a massive election reform bill that would implement nationwide automatic voter registration and require states to allow all eligible voters to vote by mail among federal elections, among other provisions, passed by a margin of 220-210 in the House on March 3. The legislation hit an upper chamber roadblock in late April when centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin announced his opposition to the measure in its current form, prompting advocates like Abrams to step up efforts to support its passage.
Though she has criticized Trump for alleging widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Abrams refused to concede to Kemp in Georgia’s “tainted” 2018 gubernatorial contest, although she did acknowledge the Republican as the “victor” nearly two weeks later.
“When he takes the oath of office, he will be the legal governor of the state of Georgia, he is the legal victor,” she said during an interview with CNN‘s State of the Union in November 2018. “What you are looking to me to say is that there was no compromise of our democracy and that there should be some political compromise in the language I use, and that’s not right.”
“What’s not right is saying that something was done properly when it was not,” she continued. “I will never deny the legal premature that says he is in this position, and I pray for his success. But will I say that this election was not tainted, was not a disinvestment and disenfranchisement of thousands of voters? I will not say that.”
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In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the Trump campaign filed several legal challenges to the outcomes in several swing states, including Georgia, which was narrowly carried by President Joe Biden. Most of these lawsuits were tossed by the courts.
Biden won Georgia by roughly 12,000 votes, a tally affirmed in multiple recounts and certified by the state, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since former President Bill Clinton in 1992.
