Stacey Abrams: ‘I Wouldn’t Oppose’ Non-Citizens Voting in Local Elections

Stacey Abrams said she would not oppose the extension of voting rights to non-citizens in local elections, offering her remarks in a Friday-aired interview on PBS’s Firing Line with Margaret Hoover.

Abrams ran for Georgia’s governorship as the Democrats’ nominee in 2018 and is the Democrats’ former leader in Georgia’s House of Representatives.

WATCH:

Transcript below:

MARGARET HOOVER: What is your view about some municipalities, like San Francisco, who have decided that it’s okay for some non-citizens to vote in local elections?

STACEY ABRAMS: I think there’s a difference between municipal and state and federal.
Part of municipality — I’m not arguing for it or against it, but I will say, having been deputy city attorney, there’s a very — the granularity of what cities decide is so specific, as to, I think, allow for people to be participants in the process without it somehow undermining our larger democratic ethic that says that you should be a citizen to be a part of the conversation.

MARGARET HOOVER: So, in some cases, you would be supportive of non-citizens voting?

STACEY ABRAMS: I wouldn’t be — I wouldn’t oppose it.

Abrams predicted demographic change would benefit the Democrat Party. Hoover did not ask Abrams to which demographic changes the latter was referring.

Abrams said:

Georgia [is] changing fairly dramatically and very quickly. And I could see that there was a pathway for Democrats to surge and to start to reclaim more power in the state. I believe that we are a purple state. I like to say we’re blue and just a little confused. But the notion being that, as we continue to change demographically, our politics are gonna keep changing.

Abrams blamed “voter suppression” for her electoral defeat in Georgia’s governors’ race, describing the election as “stolen from Georgians.”

Abrams called for “mail-in voting” to become standard in national elections. Hoover did not ask about vulnerabilities to fraud in such a system.

“I think that voting by mail makes a great deal of sense,” said Abrams. “I would love to see mail-in — you know, vote by mail be a national standard.”

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