The GOP candidate in that Georgia special election is a pioneering vote suppressor

Georgia voters cannot allow Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who significantly over-performed expectations in an historically Republican district, to “steal the seat that has been held by the great leaders like Tom Price, Johnny Isakson, and Newt Gingrich.” At least that’s what Karen Handel, the Republican who now faces off against Ossoff in a run-off election, told supporters after she took a distant second in a race that determined which candidates would advance to the run-off.

Handel’s unfounded allegation — that a Democratic victory would be a kind of theft —hearkens back to similar rhetoric by her fellow Republicans. Among other things, Donald Trump sought an investigation into nonexistent voter fraud, falsely suggesting that he would have won the popular vote if not for ballots cast by undocumented immigrants.

But it is not the least bit surprising that Handel would declare Democratic electoral victories illegitimate either. Seven years ago, Handel was Georgia’s Secretary of State — its chief elections officer. In that role, she was a top advocate for a then-innovative method of voter suppression. She spearheaded an illegal purge of Georgia’s voting rolls. And she even tried to prevent Democratic candidates from appearing on the state’s ballots.

The purge

Less than two months before the 2008 presidential election, Jose Morales received an ominous letter. The letter told Morales, a Georgia college student who became a naturalized citizen in 2007, that his citizenship status was unclear and that a hearing would determine whether he was actually allowed to vote.

According to a lawsuit he filed less than a month before the election, Morales was told that his name would be removed from the state’s voter rolls unless he affirmatively proved that he was a U.S. citizen. As a result, Morales traveled to an election office half-an-hour from his home to show them his passport. Nevertheless, Morales received yet another letter after this trip informing him that if he did not contact the elections office or appear at a hearing, he would be disenfranchised.

https://thinkprogress.org/the-gop-candidate-in-that-georgia-special-election-is-a-pioneering-vote-suppressor-34de8e90d2f4