Some of what you say here is true (though not material). I agree that Greg Palast sometimes appears abrasive and/or intrusive, and makes occasional remarks that are more personal than relevant (as with the style of dress). However, the abrasive and intrusive parts are a necessary part of the job, because nobody who removes tens of thousands of voters without justification other than they're on some unverified list likes to be questioned about it, but should be questioned about it, and the sooner the better. This is an investigative reporter, with many successes under his belt, and he asks hard questions, "hard" because the person questioned doesn't want to have to explain what she did. But anyone who removes voters as she did _should_ have to explain it.
You mention who he works for. Some of his work as been published by The Guardian. He's also written a few best-selling books about his work, and at least one non-fiction movie. One of the entities he "works for" now is Black Voters Matter: whatsamatter, you think there's something not credible about Black voters mattering?
You say, "all the County has to do is refuse to comply", but the original article responds directly to that, saying:
"And just in case county officials attempt to reject these renewed mass challenges, another little-noticed clause in SB202 will enforce the voter purge.
"Counties, who previously had final say over voter rolls and the counting of ballots, must now accept the challenges. If not, the State Elections Board can dismiss local voting officials. The newly constituted state board is, according to the new law, under the control of Governor Brian Kemp and legislative leaders, all Republicans.
"The new board just removed voting rights advocate Helen Butler from the Monroe County Elections Board. Butler, Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda, was my co-plaintiff in a successful federal suit against then Sec. of State Brian Kemp."
Some such purges, including this one, _are_ based (as you suggested they were) on supposed changes of residence. But the lists are slapped together carelessly (or worse, presuming moves even when they shouldn't be presumed, to purge the largest number possible of some kind of voters). A lot of the people either haven't moved at all or have moved within the county so should not be purged. This particular article gives examples but doesn't say how many; but Palast & those working with him are very right to be suspicious that it's a large number, because a similar trick was done, also in Georgia, in the time when Brian Kemp was Secretary of State (he was also a candidate for Governor _while_ he was Secretary of State, therefore overseeing the election in which he was a candidate -- he was therefore asked to step down from that obviously biased position as Secretary of State, but didn't.). Here's what Palast writes about _that_ purge:
"How could I find out exactly how many on the list had ~actually moved~ -- versus how many were simply re-moved by Kemp?" And he describes how to find out. Then he concludes: "More than a third of a million wrongly purged -- in this one state. The list was more than 74% wrong." My source: _How Trump Stole 2020_, by Greg Palast, pages 18-21, but the same book also includes an Appendix with more detail about that.
It's a rough business, and the investigative reporter and his team keep after the officials until they get answers. You're blaming the reporter, but it's the purgers who really are, in your words, "out of control right wing"; but not "lunatic", more like devious or venal. The reporter is basically telling the truth about them.
You also say, in a hypothetical example, "[if] it turns out 4000 of them are people of color, my challenge is NOT racist"; and I agree that the fact that a large number are people of color does not imply racism. But a wrong purge is wrong whether they happen to be of color or not.
There's a logical reason why these purged voters would share some characteristics. The excuse for purging them was that they were presumed moved out of county. That excuse is mostly false. But the purged voters have something else in common: they "happen to be" of demographics that tend to vote Democratic.
Another excuse the purgers give is that they're trying to prevent illegal voting. And yet time and again, the following happens:
"The state’s own investigation of the November presidential race could not identify a single illegal voter, let alone hundreds of thousands." (reference: the original article, which I posted in the original post).
Some of what you say here is true (though not mate... (
show quote)