Bottoms on Jackson’s Threats to Militarize the Election

In Don Lemon Interview, Keisha Blasts Jackson for Calling for the National Guard to Monitor the November Election in Georgia

ATLANTA — This morning, in an interview on The Don Lemon Show, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms condemned Rick Jackson over his recent comments that were exposed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday, calling for the Georgia National Guard to be deployed to monitor polling places in Georgia this November.

At a recent campaign event, Jackson spoke to a voter about the upcoming election. In response to the question, “Can you call up and get some federal troops from Trump?” Jackson replied “Well, we’ll get the National Guard.”

“You call up the National Guard during a state of emergency, not in anticipation of an election… This guy who I'm running against, this billionaire, is projecting everything that Trump wants him to project. He says he wants to be Trump with a southern tone, and Trump's favorite governor. There's not a single policy that he disagrees with Trump on, and this is an opportunity for people to make their feelings about Trump known when they show up and vote in November,” said Keisha.

When asked about the Supreme Court's recent ruling, which lifted the block on the President's Executive Order restricting mail-in ballot voting, and state Republicans continued attempts to undermine Georgia's elections and intimidate voters, Bottoms responded:

“This interference with our right to vote has not been a one-time thing. It's been gradual. We have motor voter registration in the state of Georgia, that was turned off for over a year, and they [state Republicans] claim that it was a computer glitch. So you add on top of that the 260 FBI agents, the raid of the Fulton County election office, and now he's [Trump] calling to do away with mail-in ballots,” said Keisha

During the interview, Keisha highlighted her voting rights plan, the Democracy First Agenda, which will establish new protections for voting rights at the state level, protect election workers, restore trust in election administration, and expand voting access.

“We've rolled out a voting plan. It covers a multitude of things that the state is empowered to do, including expanding access to ballot dropboxes, making Election Day a state holiday, and expanding the types of state IDs people can use in order to register to vote, like student IDs, for example,” said Keisha.“We're not asking to step on anyone's rights. We're just saying give everybody free and fair access to the right to vote.”

Watch the full interview here.