Thread by @Greg_Palast

A "record turnout" in Georgia? Not quite. A one-million-vote nose-dive in turnout for the Runoff was well-concealed by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to cover up the effects of “Jim Crow 2.O” at the launch his presidential campaign. gregpalast.com/record-turnout…

From the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, math-challenged reporters have repeated the completely upside-down fable of a “record turnout” in the Georgia Runoff. But the official count shows the turnout fell by a breathtaking one-million votes. gregpalast.com/record-turnout…

Facts matter. The faux “record turnout” is used by Republican pols to discredit the grossly partisan and racially poisonous effects of #SB202, the law signed last year by Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp that the NAACP dubs “Jim Crow 2.0.” gregpalast.com/mail-in-ballot…

#SB202 has become the model for #VoteSuppression legislation already marching into legislatures from Texas to Wisconsin.

But here are the cold, hard facts...

1. In Sen. Raphael Warnock’s runoff two years ago, the turnout was 4,484,954. This time, the vote plummeted to 3,538,910. Since when is a one-million-vote nosedive a “record” turnout?

2. Mail-in ballots fell off a cliff. Absentee ballots — which Warnock won two years ago by a stunning two-to-one margin — plummeted by a breathtaking 83%, from over a million (1,084,021) in the 2021 runoff to just 191,286 last week. gregpalast.com/election-day-i…

Where did the repeaters (I dare not call them “reporters”) get this “record turnout” canard, this hot steaming load of fact-defying horse-plop? It all comes from Brian Kemp and his Jim Crow 2.0 enforcer, GOP Sec of State Brad Raffensperger’s press releases, like these doozies...

Here's a couple of the fact-defying press releases:

1. “RECORD BREAKING TURNOUT IN GEORGIA’S RUNOFF ELECTION”

2. "RECORD SHATTERING TURNOUT CONTINUES TUESDAY”

That propaganda was quoted as gospel in the headlines of virtually every news outlet in America. However, at the very bottom of the GA Sec of State’s self-congratulating press releases is a little link called “Data Hub” — and the numbers there tell a very, very different story.

The Republican pol’s press releases are careful to avoid out-and-out lies, carefully selecting stats that he knows number-phobic reporters will never check.

In the “Record Breaking Turnout” release, for example, he boasts of “Three single-day all-time voting records during early voting.”

True enough, but that’s an artifact of cutting voting days by more than half.

If a bank closes two of three teller booths, the line at the remaining booth will set a “record.”

So, thanks to Brian Kemp's #SB202, De’Asia waited in line for two hours with her toddler to vote on the last day of early voting in Georgia for the Senatorial runoff.