Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 11-20-18

Mid Term Election
What Role Did Race
Democrat Stacey Abrams Ends Candidacy In Georgia Governor Race, Blasts Process As Discriminatory
Play In Andrew Gillum’s
Democrat Stacey Abrams on Friday ended her candidacy for governor more than a week after polls closed in Georgia and ac- cused her opponent of "ap- palling" intentional efforts to suppress votes, which largely affected African-Americans.
Abrams, who was run- ning to become the nation's first Black female governor, said it is clear that Republi- can Brian Kemp will be the state's next governor. How- ever, she refused to concede and used her speech to re- buke the "rotten and rigged" election process, alleging "systemic disenfranchise- ment" at the hands of Kemp, who was also the state's chief elections administrator.
"I acknowledge that for- mer Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified the victor in the 2018 gubernato- rial election," she said. "But to watch an elected official,
moments after the state's chief elections official certi- fied the results following a protracted 10-day legal bat- tle. Kemp led Abrams 50.2 percent to 48.8 percent — or by about 55,000 votes — with 99 percent of the vote counted.
Abrams' admission of defeat brought to a close one of the most closely watched contests of the 2018 midterm cycle.
In her Friday speech, she said Kemp "was deliberate and intentional in his ac- tions" of suppression while overseeing the state's election system.
"Democracy failed in Georgia," Abrams said of the contest, which was marred by allegations of voter roll purging and sup- pression largely affecting African Americans. "This time, the mistakes clearly al- tered the outcome."
Loss To Ron DeSantis?
Like so many Democrats heartbroken by the narrow loss of Florida’s first black nominee for governor, Judy Beck is pretty certain why Andrew Gillum lost. Gillum conceded for the sec- ond time Saturday.
“Andrew Gillum would have won if he were white,” said Beck, a St. Petersburg retiree and registered Democ- rat.
That sentiment is widely shared among Gillum sup- porters, who saw poll after poll suggest Gillum was headed for a victory and likely to perform stronger than Democratic U. S. Sen. Bill Nelson. Both Democrats barely lost their races in the preliminary counts, but Nel- son, who is white, wound up winning 43,000 votes more than Gillum.
Given how Nelson out- performed Gillum, there’s a widespread perception that race played a key role in the governor’s race, said Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Pe- tersburg.
“I’m not one to call racism unless I smell it, feel it, touch it, walk with it,” Rouson said. “But there are many who would argue, and make good points, that racism did have a role.”
The reality is much more complicated.
Racial overtones were a prominent feature in the Florida’s governor’s race, from Republican Ron De- Santis’ kicking off the gen- eral election saying Gillum would “monkey this up,” to Gillum’s implying racism when DeSantis pressed him on a corruption investigation. In an election decided by less than half a percentage point, Gillum’s race plainly could have been a key factor in De- Santis’ win.
But so could the strikingly large number of Black voters in Florida who chose not to vote for Gillum.
Exit polls showed 86 per- cent of Black voters cast bal-
ANDREW GILLUM
lots for Gillum, and 90 per- cent backed Nelson. At least 95 percent of Black voters backed Barack Obama 2008 and 2012.
Nelson received a couple hundred more votes than Gillum in Florida’s only ma- jority Black county, Gadsden in North Florida. And the white three-term senator won more votes than Gillum in the five counties with the highest share of Black resi- dents, including Gillum’s home county of Leon.
Kevin Cate, a senior ad- viser on the Gillum cam- paign noted that the race was a statistical tie, so no one should make sweeping as- sumptions about why Gillum barely fell short.
“It’s much easier to scare the ---- out of people than to motivate them with a mes- sage of positive transforma- tional change. That’s what Andrew Gillum did, and that’s what he will continue to do,” Cate said.
Gillum also was an un- abashed liberal running in a state that elected Republican governors in five previous elections. Obama became the first Black candidate to win a statewide Florida elec- tion after spending millions of dollars on TV stressing his plan to cut middle class taxes. Gillum in contrast called for an increase in corporate taxes to better fund Florida schools.
STACEY ABRAMS
who claims to represent the people in the state, baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people's democratic right to vote has been truly appalling."
She added, "So let's be clear, this is not a speech of concession because conces- sion means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of con- science and faith, I cannot concede that."
Abrams' speech came
Bill Nelson Needs A Miracle In Florida Senate Race
Sen. Bill Nelson has no viable path to winning a re- count of ballots in Florida’s U. S. Senate race, but he's still refusing to concede.
Nelson, a Democrat who has held the seat since 2000, remains about 12,600 votes behind Republican Gov. Rick Scott after a machine recount concluded Thursday.
Neither an ongoing hand recount nor an extended deadline for rejected mail-in ballots is likely to produce enough votes to put Nelson on top. But he’s not giving up. “I truly believe we can win this race together,” Nelson told supporters in a fundrais- ing email Friday.
The head of Nelson’s legal team, election recount veteran Marc Elias, said he believes a manual recount of irregular ballots that began Thursday would close the gap. But so far, it hasn’t.
Broward County, a Demo- cratic stronghold where there were tens of thousands of ballots that did not register a Senate choice, finished a manual recount early Friday without producing the miss- ing votes for Nelson.
Elias believed those missing votes were skipped by the machine tabulators and would be discovered by volunteers conducting a hand recount. But the Senate race was instead left blank on those ballots, according to Broward election officials.
Nelson attempted to
BILL NELSON
challenge the rule narrowing the recount to the machine- rejected ballots, but a judge ruled against him.
The manual recount tallies for all of the state’s 67 coun- ties are due Sunday, and state officials will certify and an- nounce final and official re- sults on Tuesday.
Between now and then, Nelson is still hoping for a miracle in the thousands of ballots that were discarded but are now able to be made legitimate thanks to a court ruling this week. The ballots were tossed out under the state’s signature match law, but District Court Judge Mark Walker ruled that voters have until Sunday to correct mismatched signa- tures.
In addition, election offi- cials statewide accepted over- seas and military ballots up until Friday.
There could be up to 7,000 ballots impacted by the
extended deadline for fixing mismatched signatures, but even if all of those were counted in favor of Nelson, a victory is still mathemati- cally out of reach for Nelson.
Scott’s campaign team repeatedly called on Nelson to concede the race, pointing to the math and accusing Nelson’s legal team of at- tempting to overturn election laws to win the race.
“With the hand recount concluding in most counties across the state showing no significant change in the margin, it’s time for Bill Nel- son to face reality and con- cede,” Scott’s campaign spokesperson, Chris Hart- line, said Friday.
Nelson may end up blam- ing a loss on the design of the ballot in Broward County. The Senate race is the first one on the ballot, on the left- hand side and underneath the voting instructions.
Some believe the ballot design used in Broward County made it easy to miss the race. Nearly 31,000 bal- lots left the race blank, out of 714,859 cast.
By comparison, fewer than 6,000 ballots left blank the governor’s race, which was situated prominently in the middle of the ballot.
But this week, Nelson was keeping his hopes up. He even traveled to Washington to participate in organizing activities for the next Con- gress.
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