Brian Kemp

As evidence mounted that Russian hackers were attempting to disrupt the 2016 elections, President Obama directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to work with states to secure their voting systems as "critical infrastructure." Kemp was the only state election official who declined the help.[25] In a 2017 interview, Kemp denounced the effort as an assault on states' rights, stating, "I think it was a politically calculated move by the previous administration," adding "I don't necessarily believe" Russia had attempted to disrupt the elections.[26][27] In August 2016, amid Russian attempts to disrupt the 2016 elections, Kemp said that an intrusion by Russian hackers into voting systems was "not probable at all, the way our systems are set up" and accused federal officials of exaggerating the threat of Russian interference.[28]

Georgia is one of fourteen states which uses electronic voting machines which do not produce a paper record, which election integrity experts say leaves the elections vulnerable to tampering and technical problems.[29] The 2018 indictment against Russian hackers (as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into 2016 interference) said that the Russian hackers targeted county websites in Georgia.[25]

In December 2016, Kemp accused the Department of Homeland Security of attempting to hack his office's computer network, including the voter registration database, implying that it was retribution for his previous refusal to work with DHS. A DHS inspector general investigation found there was no hacking, but rather it was "the result of normal and automatic computer message exchanges generated by the Microsoft applications involved."[30][29]

In October 2015, the Georgia Secretary of State's office, under Kemp's leadership, erroneously distributed personal data (including Social Security numbers and dates of birth) of 6.2 million registered Georgia voters. This data breach occurred when the office sent out a CD with this information to 12 organizations that purchase monthly voter lists from the office. The office was not aware of the breach until the following month and did not publicly acknowledge the mishap until The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the class action lawsuit against the office as a result of the data breach.[31] Within a month of the breach becoming publicly known, it had cost taxpayers $1.2 million in credit monitoring services for those whose data had been compromised, and $395,000 for an audit into Kemp's handling of the unauthorized data disclosure.[32]

Kemp drew criticism again in 2017 when it was revealed that a flaw in the State voting system exposed the personal information of all of Georgia's 6.7 million voters, as well as passwords used by county election officials to access voter files, and went unfixed for 6 months after it was reported.[33][34] After a lawsuit was filed, a server at the center of the controversy was wiped, preventing officials from determining the scope of the breach.[35] Kemp denied responsibility, instead saying researchers at Kennesaw State University, who managed the system, had acted "in accordance with standard IT procedures" in deleting the data.[36]

Kemp has frequently been accused of voter suppression during the election between him and Stacey Abrams, his opponent.[37][38][39] Emory University professor Carol Anderson has criticized Kemp as an "enemy of democracy" and "an expert in voter suppression" for his actions as Secretary of State.[40] Political scientists Michael Bernhard and Daniel O'Neill described Kemp's actions in the 2018 gubernatorial election as the worst case of voter suppression in that election year.[41] Stacey Abrams, a voting rights advocate and Kemp's 2018 gubernatorial opponent, has called Kemp "a remarkable architect of voter suppression."[42] Critics say that voter suppression tactics in subsequent elections have been considerably lessened after Kemp resigned his position as Secretary of State in anticipation of becoming Governor.[43] Kemp denies that he engages in voter suppression.[44]

Kemp introduced a controversial "exact match" policy during his first year as Secretary of State in 2010.[45] Under the system, eligible Georgians were dropped from voter rolls for an errant hyphen or if "a stray letter or a typographical error on someone's voter registration card didn't match the records of the state's driver's license bureau or the Social Security office."[40] In a 2010 explanation defending the practice to the Department of Justice, Kemp's office said the policy was "designed to assure the identity and eligibility of voters and to prevent fraudulent or erroneous registrations."[46] The policy was initially rejected by the Department of Justice, but allowed to go into place with additional safeguards, though a later lawsuit claimed "it is not apparent that the Secretary of State ever followed the safeguards."[47] The process was halted after a lawsuit in 2016,[47] but the State legislature passed a modified form of the policy in 2017 and the process began again.[47]

These types of "exact match" laws are considered by critics to be a form of voter suppression designed to disproportionately target minorities,[48] and African-American, Asian, and Latino voters accounted for 76.3% of the registrations dropped from voter rolls between July 2015 and July 2017.[47][44][49] Critics say that minority names are more likely to contain hyphens and less common spellings that lead to clerical mistakes, resulting in rejection of the registration.[50] In a 2018 ruling against Kemp, District Judge Eleanor Ross said the system places a "severe burden" on voters.[51]

After changes to the Voting Rights Act in 2012 gave states with a history of voter suppression more autonomy,[52] Kemp's office oversaw the closing of 214 polling locations, or 8% of the total number of locations in Georgia.[53] The closings disproportionately affected African-American communities.[54] In majority minority Randolph County, a consultant recommended that 7 of the 9 county polling locations be closed ahead of the 2018 midterm election for failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.[55] After the plan was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union the locations were allowed to remain open.[56] Kemp denied knowledge of the plan, but a slide from a presentation given by the consultant stated "Consolidation has come highly recommended by the Secretary of State and is already being adopted by several counties and is being seriously considered and being worked on by many more."[57] Officials claim the locations were closed as a cost-saving measure.[53]

Georgia has been the most aggressive state in removing registered voters from voter rolls for not voting in consecutive elections.[58] Between 2012 and 2018, Kemp's office cancelled over 1.4 million voters' registrations, with nearly 700,000 cancellations in 2017 alone.[59][44] On a single night in July 2017, half a million voters, or approximately 8% of all registered Georgia voters, had their registrations cancelled, an act described by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as what "may represent the largest mass disenfranchisement in US history."[60] Kemp oversaw the removals as Secretary of State, and did so eight months after he declared that he was going to run for governor.[61]

By early October 2018, more than 53,000 voter registration applications had been put on hold by Kemp's office, with more than 75% belonging to minorities.[47][44] The voters are eligible to re-register assuming they still live in Georgia, and they have not died.[62][44][61][63] An investigative journalism group run by Greg Palast found that of the approximately 534,000 Georgians whose voter registrations were purged between 2016 and 2017 more than 334,000 still lived where they were registered.[63] The voters were given no notice that they had been purged.[64] Palast ultimately sued Kemp, claiming over 300,000 voters were purged illegally.[65] Kemp's office denied any wrongdoing, saying that by "regularly updating our rolls, we prevent fraud and ensure that all votes are cast by eligible Georgia voters."[66]

Kemp's office was found to have violated the law before and immediately after the 2018 midterm elections.[67] In a ruling against Kemp, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg found that Kemp's office had violated the Help America Vote Act and said an attempt by Kemp's office to expedite the certification of results "appears to suggest the Secretary's foregoing of its responsibility to confirm the accuracy of the results prior to final certification, including the assessment of whether serious provisional balloting count issues have been consistently and properly handled." [68][69] Kemp said the expedited certification was necessary to facilitate his transition to the role of Governor.

After Totenberg's ruling thousands of voting machines were sequestered by local election officials on Election Day in 2018, an action that critics say was designed to increase wait times at polling locations.[70] The sequestration of machines disproportionately affected counties that favored Kemp's opponent[71] and caused voters in some locations to have to wait in line for hours in inclement weather in order to vote.[72][73] Other locations suffered delays because machines had been delivered without power cords.[74] Kemp himself experienced technical problems attempting to vote in the election.[75]

Kemp opposes automatic voter registration,[76] a change that advocates say would help make voting easier for eligible citizens and help prevent voter suppression.[77] In a leaked 2018 recording Kemp can be heard saying that attempts to register all eligible voters "continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote."[78] In a separate 2018 recording made by a progressive group he can be heard saying "Democrats are working hard ... registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November."[40][79][80]

On November 4, 2018, 48 hours before his gubernatorial election, Kemp's office of Secretary of State published the details of a zero day flaw in the State registration website,[81][82] accusing Democrats of attempted hacking for investigating the problem but providing no evidence.[83] Critics say the announcement was further evidence of voter suppression and gave hackers a window of opportunity during which voter registration records could be changed.[84] In response to criticisms of the announcement, Kemp said "I'm not worried about how it looks. I'm doing my job."[85] In a ruling on the matter, Judge Totenberg criticized Kemp for having "delayed in grappling with the heightened critical cybersecurity issues of our era posed [by] the state's dated, vulnerable voting system" and said the system "poses a concrete risk of alteration of ballot counts."[86] In December 2018, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that Kemp made the hacking claims without any evidence to support the allegations.[87] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that Kemp may have made the unsubstantiated accusations against Democrats as a ploy and diversion to help him win the election; the "examination suggests Kemp and his aides used his elected office to protect his political campaign from a potentially devastating embarrassment. Their unsubstantiated claims came at a pivotal moment, as voters were making their final decisions in an election that had attracted intense national attention."[87]

As a result of the controversies surrounding the 2018 Georgia midterms Kemp's gubernatorial victory has been referred to by critics as illegitimate,[88] with others, such as Senator Cory Booker, going so far as to say the election was "stolen."[89]

On September 5, 2018, an attack ad was released[90] claiming that Kemp chose not to pursue accusations of sexual assault against therapists employed by Massage Envy during his time overseeing the Georgia Board of Massage Therapy because of donations made by franchisee owners to Kemp's campaign.[91][92] The offenders were able to renew their Board licenses after the accusations.[93] Republican State Senator Renee Unterman said that there "appears to be a direct connection between campaign support from Massage Envy franchisees in exchange for non-action and suppression" and asked U.S. Attorney B.J. Pak to investigate "what seems to be a quid pro quo scheme being perpetrated through the secretary of state's office and the Kemp for governor campaign."[94] Kemp said that he had done nothing illegal.[95]

In response to the accusations, a spokesperson for Kemp's campaign asserted that Unterman was "mentally unstable" and suggested she "seek immediate medical attention before she hurts herself or someone else". The Kemp campaign was criticized for its apparent reference to Unterman's history of depression, about which she had spoken publicly.[96][97] In response, Unterman said she would not be "intimidated, blackmailed, belittled, or sexually harassed" into silence by Kemp's campaign.[98] The campaign did not apologize for the remarks.[96][97]

In March 2017, Kemp announced his candidacy in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election.[99] In a field of six candidates, Kemp and Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle came in the two top places in a six-way Republican primary in May 2018, advancing to a runoff election.[100]

During the runoff campaign, Cagle sought to portray Kemp as an incompetent Secretary of State, whereas Kemp sought to portray Cagle as scandal-prone and corrupt.[101] Cagle frequently criticized Kemp's behavior during the campaign, and accused him of "dirty tricks" and of launching a "sexist attack" against one of Cagle's supporters.[102]

During the primary and primary runoff campaigns, Kemp ran sharply to Cagle's right, benefiting from provocative campaign advertising (with a tag line "Yep, I just said that"), as well as by an endorsement from President Donald Trump late in the campaign, which Trump made at the request of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.[103] In the runoff election, Kemp was endorsed by the GeorgiaCarry.org and the Family Research Council as well as by Republican candidates who were eliminated in the primary, Michael Williams, Clay Tippins, and Hunter Hill.[104] Many believe Perdue's support for Kemp was in response to Governor Nathan Deal's endorsement of Cagle.[103]

In the runoff election, Kemp defeated Cagle by a broad margin, receiving 408,595 votes (69.45%) to Cagle's 179,712 (30.55%).[105]

Kemp ran against Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams, the minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, in the 2018 general election. During the gubernatorial campaign, Kemp embraced Trump-like policies and themes.[104][106][107] Kemp ran on a policy of imposing a state spending cap,[108] opposing Medicaid expansion,[109] and implementing the "strictest" abortion laws in the country.[110] Kemp favors repealing the Affordable Care Act, describing it as "an absolute disaster," and supports litigation seeking to eliminate the law's protections for persons with a pre-existing condition.[111] He has said he would sign a bill of "religious freedom and restoration", vetoed twice by governor Nathan Deal, which would allow refusal of contraception to women or services to LGBT couples on the basis of religious beliefs.[112]

A screen capture taken from a controversial Brian Kemp for Governor campaign ad, titled "Jake"

Kemp provoked controversy with a series of video campaign ads in which he set off an explosive device,[113] posed surrounded by rifles equipped with assault-style vertical forward grips,[114] made threats of kidnapping illegal immigrants,[115] and held a shotgun in the direction of a young man playing someone interested in dating one of Kemp's daughters.[116] The lack of proper gun safety in handling the shotgun in the "Jake" ad attracted criticism from the National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, which said that the ad "delivers a message perpetuating domestic violence and misogyny while modeling egregiously unsafe behavior," and prompted criticism that the ad depicted irresponsible handling of guns.[117][118] Kemp's supporters, by contrast, viewed the campaign ad as a "lighthearted portrayal of a protective, gun-wielding Southern father vetting a potential suitor" and Kemp dismissed the criticism, telling critics to "Get over it."[117] Members of Kemp's family spoke out against the ads, but also said that the ads do not accurately reflect their experiences with Kemp.[119]

During the 2018 campaign, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter,[120] as well as a number of Georgia-based organizations, such as the Georgia NAACP and Georgia Common Cause, called upon Kemp to resign as Secretary of State while running for governor, thus ensuring that he would not be overseeing his own election. Kemp declined to do so.[121]

Almost a week before election day, Kemp cancelled a scheduled debate so that he could instead attend a Trump rally in Georgia. Kemp blamed Abrams for the cancellation, saying that she was unwilling to reschedule it. The date of the debate had been agreed upon since mid-September.[122]

Two days before the election, Kemp's office announced that it was investigating the Georgia Democratic Party for unspecified "possible cybercrimes"; the Georgia Democratic Party stated that "Kemp's scurrilous claims are 100 percent false" and described them as a "political stunt."[123] A 2020 investigation by the Georgia Attorney General's office concluded that there was no evidence for Kemp's claims.[4] Later that year, it was revealed that the supposed cybercrime that his office had been the victim of was in fact a planned security test that Kemp has himself signed off on three months prior.[5]

On December 4, 2018, U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced that he would like to call Kemp before Congress to testify about the fairness of his actions during the 2018 elections.[124][125][126] "I want to be able to bring people in, like the new governor-to-be of Georgia, to explain ... to us why is it fair for wanting to be secretary of state and be running [for governor]," Cummings said.[127]

On March 6, 2019, it was revealed that both Kemp and his successor as Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, were under investigation by the House Oversight and Reform Committee for alleged voter suppression in the 2018 elections. Cummings oversaw the investigation as chairman of the committee. Kemp was given until March 20, 2019 to comply with document requests or face a subpoena.[128]

In May 2019, Kemp signed into law a highly controversial bill that would prohibit abortions after a heartbeat can be detected in a fetus, which is usually when a woman is six weeks pregnant; the legislation was one of the country's strictest anti-abortion laws.[130] The legislation was blocked by the federal courts, which held the legislation unconstitutional: a preliminary injunction entered in October 2019 blocked the legislation from going into effect,[131] and a permanent injunction entered in July 2020 permanently voided the law.[132]

In April 2019, Kemp signed legislation into law addressing some criticisms that arose from the contested 2018 election; the new law provides that polling places cannot be changed 60 days before an election, that county election officials cannot reject absentee ballots because of mismatched signatures, and that a voter whose voter registration application information does not match other government databases will not be removed from the voter rolls for this reason.[133]

Kemp visited Swainsboro in September 2019 to announce the creation of a rural "strike team" focusing on economic development in rural areas of the state.[134]

After Johnny Isakson announced that he would resign from the U.S. Senate on December 31, 2019, Kemp chose businesswoman Kelly Loeffler to fill Isakson's vacancy on December 4.[135] Loeffler was sworn into office on January 6, 2020.

Kemp appointed Carla Wong McMillian to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court of Georgia caused by the retirement of Robert Benham.[136][137]

Despite a regular election to the Supreme Court of Georgia being scheduled for November 2020, Kemp cancelled the election when Judge Keith R. Blackwell announced he would retire between the scheduled election and the end of his term.[138][139]

On April 1, 2020, Kemp announced a statewide stay-at-home order to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.[140] Kemp was among the last governors to issue a stay-at-home order,[141][142] as a national emergency was declared three weeks earlier on March 13.[143] As he issued the order, Kemp said he had become aware the coronavirus could be spread by asymptomatic people only that day, despite warnings from health officials made months earlier.[140][144] At the end of April, Kemp lifted the stay-at-home order, doing so over the opposition of mayors[141] and against the advice of public health experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[142]

While many other states were implementing face mask mandates, Kemp prohibited localities from implementing stricter public health measures than the state.[8][145] In response, localities filed lawsuits against Kemp.[8] In July, Kemp prohibited cities and counties in Georgia from requiring face masks to halt the spread of the coronavirus.[8] At the time, coronavirus cases were surging in many states, and other states were implementing statewide face mask mandates.[7][8] By mid-July 2020, more than 127,000 COVID-19 cases had been reported in Georgia, with 3,000 deaths.[146]

A July 2019 poll showed that Kemp had a 52% job approval rating among Georgians, ranked as the 22nd most popular governor in the United States.[147] A May 2020 Ipsos poll showed that Kemp's job approval rating had declined to 39% among Georgians, making him among the nation's least popular governors; Kemp's low popularity was attributed to his handling of the coronavirus crisis.[148][149] As of November 2020, Kemp's approval ratings have fallen further, to 37% approval and 44% disapproval, according to a IAG/Fox 5 Poll.[150]

After the 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia which Joe Biden won, Kemp faced criticism from the losing candidate, Donald Trump, because he followed the state law requiring him to certify the results despite Trump's false claims of fraud in the election.[9][151] This has resulted in speculation he may face a Trump-backed Republican primary challenge if he runs for reelection in 2022.[152]

In an interview on Fox News in November 2020, President Donald Trump said that he was "ashamed" for supporting Kemp during Kemp's 2018 run for governor of Georgia. Trump added that Kemp had "done absolutely nothing" to challenge the final result of the November 2020 election in Georgia in which Joe Biden defeated Trump by 12,779 votes, the first time Georgia elected a Democratic candidate for president since 1992.[153] Kemp and Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan put out a joint statement explaining that calling a joint session of the Georgia General Assembly to appoint their own electors to send to the United States Electoral College would be unconstitutional.[154]

In December 2020, Trump called for the resignation of Governor Kemp.[155] That same month, attorney Lin Wood, acting separately from the Trump campaign, called for the imprisonment of Kemp along with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.[156]