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Kemp resigns as Georgia Secretary of State

It looks as though embattled Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who has been widely criticized for not recusing himself from an election in which he was a candidate for governor, has taken former President Jimmy Carter’s advice and resigned his office just hours before he was to appear in court to answer a lawsuit filed to prevent him from overseeing the vote count in the governor’s race.

Kemp’s lawyer told the court that the Republican gubernatorial candidate, who holds a narrowing margin against his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams, had

Kemp had declared himself the winner of the race, which has been pocked with accusations of poor cybersecurity, unanswered vulnerabilities and voter suppression. But as his lead over Abrams has shrunk while provisional and absentee votes are counted, she has refused to concede and the likelihood of a recount has grown.

Over the weekend Kemp, without offering evidence, accused the Democratic Party of Georgia of “a failed attempt to hack the state’s voter registration system.”

Kemp’s office said at the time it wouldn’t comment on the probe. “I can confirm that the Democratic Party of Georgia is under investigation for possible cyber crimes," Kemp’s press secretary, Candice Broce, said in a release. "We can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure."

But the allegations, which were made without evidence, were immediately renounced by Democrats and called into questions by security pros who pointed to numerous previous vulnerabilities in the state’s election system that some contend the Kemp’s office ignored.

Kemp has said Georgia didn’t have to worry about its voting systems because they were secure. That was before U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg admonished Georgia officials in September for sticking their “head in the sand” in the face of evidence that showed the state’s election systems had obvious security holes.

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