Stacey Abrams insists every vote be counted; that makes her a great American

Georgia’s history of voter suppression has to end.

I voted for Stacey Abrams. I was fortunate to work in a building hosting early voting, so I simply walked into the lobby to exercise my right to cast my ballot.

For the entire week, stories poured in about people waiting four and five hours to vote. I heard of people leaving because of the long voting lines. At one polling place, workers forgot to bring power cords for the voting machines. Another location had to rush to get additional voting machines because they underestimated the turnout.

We all heard the story about the busload of African American senior citizens who were stopped by police on their way to vote.

Someone apparently saw the bus, painted with the words “The South is Rising Tour,” and called county government offices, Brown said. That led to the phone call from the county clerk to the senior center. When they were asked, the senior citizens agreed to leave the bus.

These senior citizens probably have violent tales of racism and white supremacy, and that day they wanted to vote for a different Georgia. Many are old enough to remember when it was against the law for black people to vote. To get a firm reminder of just how far this country — and Georgia — hasn’t come must have been a bitter reminder of that history.

These are the incidences we know about, but I’m sure there are more unreported acts of voter suppression. This is why Stacey Abrams wants everyone who voted or who tried to vote to have their voices heard. Isn’t this our country at its core? Isn’t it the right of every American who is eligible and wants to vote to do just that? Yet Brian Kemp and even Donald Trump are telling us to move on. We lost.

Let me tell you something about black people: We are strong. We are resilient. We are not sore losers. And what Georgia isn’t going to do today or any other day is take away the rights our ancestors fought and died for just because white Trump supporters don’t want to see a black female governor elected here. Black people have dealt with voter suppression and voter intimidation for decades. Every time it happens, white people tell us we’re seeing things, that we need to get over it.

Black people aren’t children. We don’t want to hold the hand of white supremacy as they tell us there aren’t any monsters. Because there are monsters. One sits in the Oval Office as his hoard offspring try to beat us into waving the white flag (Thank you to my wonderful friend for the monster analogy).

We will not be waving any flag.

We are not backing down.

Black people are mobilizing in greater numbers, and we’re coming to take what’s rightfully ours. We hear the ancestral drums beating in our ears as we fight for our rights. If you think you’ve won, think again. We will never give up.

And why should we when this just happened?

A cache of 5,500 provisional and mail-in ballots were reported that showed Kemp’s lead over Abrams shrinking slightly to about 59,000 votes. Some came from counties that days earlier reported all votes had been tallied.

The election was held almost a week ago. How were these ballots overlooked? And where are the remaining ballots from counties affected by Hurricane Michael? If Kemp were so concerned about a fair election, he would have foreseen the problems those counties would have as they struggle to recover from that devastation. What about people who never got their voter registration despite registering before the deadline? Questions still remain as to whether all the military ballots have been received.

And what about those damn provisional ballots? Abram’s campaign manager had this to say:

Update: At the Thursday noon press conference, [Lauren] Groh-Wargo said Kemp is 25,622 votes above the threshold for a runoff and that 23,372 more Abrams votes would trigger a recount. She cited the secretary of state’s office as saying there were still 22,000 provisional ballots plus an “additional 3,000” votes that had yet to be counted, and noted military and overseas absentee ballots (of which she cited 1,000 in Fulton County alone) had until Friday to arrive to be counted. She also mentioned that 303 early votes were counted in Cobb County just this morning — 236 additional for Abrams, 65 additional for Kemp, 2 additional for Metz. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that secretary of state spokesperson Candice Broce said there “less than 2,000” absentee and mail-in ballots yet to be counted and that there were 22,000 provisional ballots still to be counted. At his press conference Thursday morning, Kemp said only about 20,000 provisional ballots had yet to be counted, according to the Associated Press.

Kemp is worried about a run-off because this time his tactics won’t work. All those disenfranchised voters will get their day, and when they do, Kemp will be out of a job (he has already resigned as secretary of state).

Doesn’t he know you don’t quit a job before landing another one?

Follow me on Twitter:@LeciaMichelle.