Fox News contributor and author Dan Bongino, as well as others, slammed MSNBC host Joy Reid for a tweet accusing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp of voter suppression during the 2018 gubernatorial election, preventing Stacey Abrams from winning.
A Twitter user said they “still can’t believe Georgians chose Brian Kemp over Stacey Abrams,” prompting Reid to respond.
“They tried not to,” Reid said. “He just took so many voters off the roles as secretary of state, record voter suppression left him with a majority. He basically got a majority of those he allowed to vote.”
They tried not to. He just took so many voters off the roles as secretary of state, record voter suppression left him with a majority. He basically got a majority of those he allowed to vote. https://t.co/466CIaZ3PU
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) April 23, 2020
Bongino took issue with that position, one that Abrams has echoed many times in the past, pointing out there is evidence that pushes back on the claim.
“Joy, Do you have an allergy to the truth? Are you ever honest or have you just given up on that? Or maybe you just lie a lot, who knows??” Bongino asked. “This has already been entirely debunked, and you either are too dopey to know that, or you’re a liar. There’s no option ‘C.’”
Joy,
Do you have an allergy to the truth? Are you ever honest or have you just given up on that? Or maybe you just lie a lot, who knows??
This has already been entirely debunked, and you either are too dopey to know that, or you’re a liar. There’s no option “C.”— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) April 23, 2020
Beth Baumann, an editor for Townhall, joined Bongino’s criticism of Reid by citing the specific law Kemp was following when he was Georgia secretary of state during the run-up to the election.
“Kemp was following the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (which was signed into law by Clinton) and GA state laws that require ‘inactive’ voters to be purged after multiple attempts to contact them,” Baumann said. “Try telling the truth for once.”
Kemp was following the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (which was signed into law by Clinton) and GA state laws that require “inactive” voters to be purged after multiple attempts to contact them.
Try telling the truth for once.
— Beth Baumann (@eb454) April 23, 2020
Abrams, who suggested as recently as Thursday that voter suppression cost her the governorship of Georgia, is widely considered to be near the top of the list of candidates to be former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 running mate.
As Bongino stated, Abrams’s claim has been heavily scrutinized and contradicted by a variety of media outlets, such as the Washington Post, which was unable to confirm the claim, and Politifact, which labeled the claim as both “not the full story” and held “no proof.”
The Heritage Foundation examined Abrams’s claims and determined that it has “never been easier” to vote in Georgia, and at the time of the 2018 gubernatorial election, there were more people registered to vote in Georgia than ever before.
On top of her belief that voter suppression is rampant across the country, Abrams has been calling for an increase in mail-in ballots to curb the spread of the coronavirus while also addressing concerns of voter fraud by calling them a “myth.”
