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I've reported on a lot of awful stuff over the years but nothing stunned me more than the viciousness with which Brian Kemp used his office to attack people trying to register minority voters in Georgia newrepublic.com/article/121715…
In the small town of Quitman, Kemp's investigators went door-to-door in a black neighborhood, guns on their sides, grilling everyone who voted in the 2010 midterm.
The state ultimately charged 12 black get-out-the-vote activists in Quitman with voter fraud, amounting to hundreds of years in prison collectively. Here's a photo of the defendants 
But the case was garbage. Debra Dennard was charged with 2 felonies for handling her father's ballot. Why did she touch his ballot? She was helping him vote. He's missing both of his legs and is partially blind. I met him and easily verified this.
“All she did was help me—just as she helps me with almost everything,” her father told me. “I knew who I wanted to vote for, and I signed the ballot myself.” vice.com/en_us/article/…
State police also helped conduct the investigation, alongside Kemp's officers
Another get-out-the-vote activist, Lula Smart helped elderly and disabled voters cast absentee ballots. She was charged with 32 counts of felony voter fraud, and faced over 100 years in prison. Her charges pended for four years. She considered suicide to end the ordeal
Ultimately the state failed to convince juries that Smart or any of the other voting activists had committed a single crime. In August of 2014, the state's case collapsed. Smart and all others were acquitted on all charges
After her acquittal, Smart went on to run for office in Quitman's 2016 municipal election. She won and now sits on Quitman's city commission. myajc.com/blog/investiga…
Kemp will face Stacy Abrams, who ran a get-out-the-vote group that was itself a target of Kemp's signature dead-end criminal investigations into nonwhites voting in Georgia. This will be quite the race.
