On Sunday's MSNBC morning show AM Joy, host Joy Reid made the shocking accusation that newly elected Congresswoman Karen Handel "specialized" in "voter suppression" when she served as Georgia's secretary of state.
Panelist Tara Dowdell’s claimed that “Voter suppression is still an issue in this country and it's not getting enough attention, and it's only getting worse.” Reid replied: “Karen Handel specialized in that when she was secretary of state in Georgia.”
The accusation of voter suppression that Reid seemed to be pointing to was a nearly decade-old situation in which then-Secretary of State Handel, who was tasked with ensuring the integrity of the ballot box, had found an irregularity in which 4,500 registered voter seemed to not have been citizens. The issue was eventually resolved though, after it was proven that the Georgia records were outdated.
But that wasn’t the only controversial thing that happened during the panel. Earlier in the discussion, another panelist, MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson, giving his explanation as to why Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff lost. His conclusion was that the Ossoff campaign did not spend enough on minorities: “you need to focus on black men, black women, Latinos and single people more because that's the future of the Democratic party, not a bunch of soccer moms that are never gonna vote for you.”
Below is a transcript of the concerned discussion:
JASON JOHNSON: There was one thing that they were missing, joy, the lesson that could have been learned from South Carolina. There's this crazy idea that like when you want to win an election you should spend money on your own people and not trying to convince people who don't like you. The Ossoff campaign if there is one mistake, they didn't spend enough in the African-American and Latino community. It's not a guarantee they were going to win but they left that to a lot of outside groups. The reality is with so much early turnout and attention paid, Republicans came out and voted early, the right-leaning independents came out and voted early. Ossoff over performed and you speak to anybody there and that's what they say. They still missed the boat, you need to focus on black men, black women, Latinos and single people more because that's the future of the Democratic party, not a bunch of soccer moms that are never gonna vote for you.
(…)11:40:06
TARA DOWDELL: Right. And so you know where I stand on this, joy. You know we had this conversation many times. I am a big believer in if you cannot maximize turnout which Jon Ossoff did, I don't want to -- but if you cannot maximize fully turnout among your own people, then it is pointless to then -- if you can't convince the people who are already primarily aligned with you, and just may not be motivated to vote, if you can't convince them you are going to have a heck of a time trying to convince people who are not predisposed to your positions. So I do think that the thing the Democrats need to focus on in my mind is massive voter registration and I think that let the outside groups do what they do but you need have your campaign needs to have a process for that as well. Voter suppression is still an issue in this country and it's not getting enough attention and it's only getting worse. So you have gerrymandered districts already an uphill battle. Combine that with the fact they are active and aggressive efforts going on to disenfranchise people and black, brown, Asian, but not just that, white voters who align with the Democratic Party are having trouble. College students are not being able to use student I.D., gun owner's permit is eligible. Early voting cut. So there is a massive assault on voting rights in this country, and that's something that Democrats need to more aggressively attack.
JOY REID: Karen Handel specialized in that when she was secretary of state in Georgia
DOWDELL: Right
