Stacey Abrams: Paid Postage Necessary for All Absentee Ballots

Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams this week pressed for all mail-in ballots to have paid postage due to the Coronavirus crisis.

She told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that since “there is no do-over for the November elections,” the country must “be prepared for a pandemic that disrupts our elections, and we need to anticipate what the solution looks like.”

Abrams called for the “resources necessary for paid postage” on all absentee ballots “because it’s not enough to say you can mail in your ballots if the post office is closed or if you can’t get there.”

Abrams, who has focused her attention on voting rights after losing her gubernatorial race in 2018, said in her state of Georgia, there has been an agreement about absentee ballots but Republicans and Democrats are “still in disagreement about postage paid.”

She pointed out paid postage is essential because “a volunteer can’t offer to pay for a stamp because it’s a violation of state law, so the state has to pay for it.”

Voters in Georgia, which could be a critical 2020 swing state, will receive absentee ballot requests, and voting rights activists have said Georgia is instituting a “poll tax” by not providing pre-paid postage on all of those absentee ballots.