Kemp Loses Vote Purge Suit Brought by Reporter Palast - Greg Palast
.....Kemp Loses Vote Purge Suit Brought by Reporter Palast
by Nicole Powersfor The Palast Investigative FundFebruary 8, 2020
Greg Palast & Helen Butler, co-plaintiffs in the Kemp lawsuit
[Atlanta-Feb 8] In an extraordinary and unexpected move, Federal Judge Eleanor Ross has declared Gov. Brian Kemp the loser in a lawsuit brought by investigative journalist Greg Palast to compel the State of Georgia to open up its complete files on the mass purge of over half a million voters from the rolls.
Surprising all parties, the judge ruled that Kemp’s defense was so weak that no trial is needed.
The judge acted “sua sponte” — on her own initiative, unrequested by Palast’s attorneys.
Palast has been fighting Kemp to release his hidden purge lists and methods for six years, for Rolling Stone, Aljazeera, Salon, Democracy Now and currently, The Guardian.
Palast said, “Kemp and the new Sec. of State of Georgia want to keep the lid on their methods for removing literally hundreds of thousands of low-income, young and minority voters on the basis of false information. They cannot hide any more. This is a huge win and precedent for reporters trying to pry information from the hands of guilty officials.”
A key issue at stake are the “Interstate Crosscheck” purge lists
secretly provided to Georgia by the Kansas Secretary of State in 2015 and 2017. Kemp had turned over Georgia’s voter rolls to Kansas official Kris Kobach, who worked closely with Donald Trump, and is known for his racially biased vote suppression techniques.