The man tasked with overseeing Georgia’s elections on Election Day was initially unable to cast his vote.
The voter card of Brian Kemp, the current Georgia secretary of state who is running to be the state’s next governor, read “invalid” at first.
Kemp, a Republican, had to go back and get another card as he voted Tuesday in his home polling location of Winterville, Ga.
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GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp also had a voting issue today. When he tried to vote, his voter card said “invalid.” Our @DaveHWSB was with Kemp today as he voted and is covering the campaign all night. #ElectionOn2 https://t.co/d4yktfco6v pic.twitter.com/YR9FeJUijj
— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) November 6, 2018
Kemp has come under scrutiny for using his position to suppress minority voters.
Kemp and Gwinnett County election officials were named in a federal lawsuit last month over the county’s rejection of absentee ballots.
Furthermore, a handful of voting irregularities and problems were reported across Georgia on Tuesday.
A voting precinct in Gwinnett County, which is outside of Atlanta, said it will keep its doors open 30 minutes later Tuesday after it experienced technical issues.
Kemp also came under scrutiny after his office announced Sunday that it launched an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia in connection with failed efforts to hack the state’s online voter registration system.
The secretary of state’s office did not provide any evidence of the attempted breach.
When asked by WSB-TV 2’s Dave Huddleston if he should have resigned as secretary of state to run for governor, he dismissed the idea.
“No, not at all. We’ve been fighting the whole time, we’ve stayed on the offense, we’ve been moving ahead and you can’t dwell on things in politics, we just grind it out every day whether it was a good day or a bad day,” Kemp said.
The race between Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams is one of the country’s most closely watched this election cycle. If Abrams is victorious, she will become the nation’s first African-American female governor.
