As reported by CNN, “Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams defended herself from criticism that she never conceded her loss to Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018…Abrams, in the wake of her 2018 loss to Kemp by 1.4 percentage points, acknowledged that Kemp, who then worked as Georgia secretary of state, would be the governor of Georgia. But she specifically said in her final speech that she (would) not concede due to persistent voter suppression allegations, adding that conceding would mean acknowledging ‘an action is right, true or proper’ and ‘as a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that’…Abrams said Kemp ‘won under the rules of the game at the time, but the game was rigged against the voters of Georgia…we had a system that (Kemp) managed, that he manipulated, hurt Georgia voters and the responsibility of leaders is to challenge systems that are not serving the people.”
Abrams also asserted that she has a “responsibility… to challenge a system that would rob a single voice from being able to be heard if they are eligible.” And just what did Abrams do to meet her “responsibility” to “challenge systems that are not serving the people?”
“A political organization backed by Democrat Stacey Abrams filed a federal lawsuit…challenging the way Georgia’s elections are run, making good on a promise Abrams made as she ended her bid to become the state’s governor…(the lawsuit) was filed by Fair Fight Action against interim Secretary of State Robyn Crittenden and state election board members in their official capacities…(a)s secretary of state, Abrams’ opponent, Republican Gov.-elect Brian Kemp, was the top elections official until he declared himself the winner and resigned two days after the election…(t)he lawsuit was filed against Crittenden, who was appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal after Kemp stepped down, but it clearly targets Kemp.”
“Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ campaign manager who’s now CEO of Fair Fight Action (said) ‘This lawsuit is going to look broadly at all the ways our secretary of suppression, Brian Kemp, suppressed the vote’… (o)n the campaign trail, Abrams repeatedly called Kemp ‘an architect of suppression,’ an allegation that Kemp vehemently denied.”
How did this effort to fight the “architect” of voter suppression in Georgia turn out?
“A federal judge (in 2022) found that Georgia election practices challenged by a group associated with Democrat Stacey Abrams do not violate the constitutional rights of voters, ruling in favor of the state on all remaining issues in a lawsuit filed nearly four years ago. ‘Although Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the VRA,’ U.S. District Judge Steve Jones in Atlanta wrote, referring to the Voting Rights Act of 1965… Kemp…applauded the ruling…’Judge Jones’ ruling exposes this legal effort for what it really is: a tool wielded by a politician hoping to wrongfully weaponize the legal system to further her own political goals,’ Kemp said in a statement emailed by his campaign.”
In fact, “(w)hile Fair Fight collected stories from more than 3,000 voters, they found very few people who were unable to cast a ballot (in 2018) and none during the 2020 election…(i)nstead…the evidence showed that in many cases problems were resolved quickly once state officials were contacted.”
Further, Fair Fight Action “was ordered to repay $231,303.71 in legal fees. $192,628.85 of that is for ‘printed or electronically recorded transcripts necessarily obtained for use in the case.’ The other $38,674.86 is for making copies to use in the case.”
In other words, in the 2018 Georgia Governor’s race, Democrat Stacey Abrams refused to concede her loss to Republican Brian Kemp; she claimed Kemp was responsible for “voter suppression”; her campaign manager brought a lawsuit to challenge the results of the election; that lawsuit was ultimately unsuccessful; and despite Abrams’ insistence, there was no “outcome determinative” fraud uncovered that would lead to the reversal of the election results.
How is this different from the actions Trump and his co-defendants are accused of taking to challenge the results of the 2020 Presidential election? According to Abrams, people should not conflate “her refusal to concede in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race with former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, calling the latter wrong and dangerous for democracy. ‘I will never ever say that it is OK to claim fraudulent outcomes as a way to give yourself power,’ Abrams said…'(t)he issues that I raised in 2018 were not grounded in making me the governor…(n)ot a single lawsuit filed would have reversed or changed the outcome of the election. My point was that the access to the election was flawed, and I refuse to concede a system that permits citizens to be denied access. That is very different than someone claiming fraudulent outcome.”
Sure, now it makes sense. Abrams didn’t think her assertions of voter suppression would change the result of the election she refused to concede – she just thought it was the right thing to do!
But this is exactly what she said in 2018; “Under the watch of the now former Secretary of State, democracy failed Georgians of every political party, every race, every region. Again. The incompetence and mismanagement we witnessed in this election had been on display months before…(b)ut this time, the mistakes clearly altered the outcome…I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election. But to watch an elected official – who claims to represent the people of this state, baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people’s democratic right to vote – has been truly appalling. So, to be clear, this is not a speech of concession. Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede.”
So, now it’s clear – Trump asserted that the election was stolen from him, while Abrams claims her opponent suppressed votes, which caused her to lose. Trump filed a series of lawsuits that were mostly unsuccessful; Abrams’ campaign filed one unsuccessful lawsuit.
But despite the lack of hard evidence to support Abrams’ assertions, no one has claimed that Abrams was lying when she claimed that the suppression of the votes of those who supported her caused her to lose the election. In fact, as the court ruled in the lawsuit brought by Fair Fight Action, there was no evidence that voting was purposefully suppressed in Georgia – at all.
There are those who would argue that Abrams’ assertions of voter suppression in 2018 were a lie. But others defend her statements as merely mistaken, and not intended to be untruthful. There are undoubtedly those who will tell you that Abrams was not lying, since she believed her own assertions of voter fraud.
But there seems to be only one real difference between the “lies” told by Donald Trump, and those told by Stacey Abrams. Trump’s “lies” are being prosecuted by Fani Willis and Jack Smith. And Abrams’ are not.
Judge John Wilson served on the bench in NYC