You may find this very hard to believe, but an election group founded by Stacey Abrams violated the law. I’ll give you a moment to get over the shock before I continue. (Hums the theme from Jeopardy) Okay. The New Georgia Project, founded by Stacey Abrams failed to disclose how it spent over $7 million in funds. The New Georgia Project failed to disclose $3 million in electioneering expenditures and $4 million in Political contributions as required by law.
Georgia officials this week alleged that an election group founded by state Democratic superstar Stacey Abrams worked in partnership with an action fund and failed to report upwards of $7 million in spending as required by state law.
The complaint filed by the Georgia Government Transparency & Campaign Finance Commission alleges that the New Georgia Project “failed to disclose” about $7.3 million in expenditures to both political organizations and third-party vendors.
The disputed expenditures occurred from 2017-2019. The complaint was first filed in 2019, with the state filing an amended complaint this week.
Georgia’s state election commission is alleging that The New Georgia project canvassed for candidates, including Abrams herself.
The commission alleges that in 2018 the New Georgia Project and the Action Fund illegally canvassed for Democratic candidates including Abrams, used phone bank scripts pushing people to vote Democratic and included “#teamAbrams” in social media posts soliciting donations. It also targets the group for work on a 2019 Gwinnett County MARTA referendum vote.
The Action Fund is a 501(c)(4), which is authorized to conduct some political activities.
New Georgia Project is a nonprofit and risks losing its tax-exempt status if it engages in partisan advocacy or endorses a candidate.
This is not the first investigation into the New Georgia Project. (NGP) NGP has been investigated for sending packages to New York. They claim they weren’t trying to register voters illegally and there is no proof they did, but they did give people a blueprint on how to do it, although that is no proof of a crime. But, the fact remains that the spending they hid included canvassing in support of candidates, which their nonprofit status does not allow.
No one will go to jail even if the law was violated, but the NGP could well lose its nonprofit status.
