This weekend, actor and comedian Will Ferrell did some good old-fashioned door knocking for Georgia Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, who would be the country’s first African-American female governor if elected.
Ferrell and his wife Viveca Paulin-Ferrell, joined volunteers this weekend to canvass and recruit volunteers on college campuses. Paulin-Ferrell told the Hollywood Reporter that the couple had planned to campaign for Abrams, but weren’t sure exactly what to do.
Will Ferrell spent yesterday in Plains encouraging voters to vote early for @staceyabrams, @SarahRiggsAmico, and all #GADems.
— Georgia Democrats (@GeorgiaDemocrat) October 26, 2018
Find your early vote location here: https://t.co/aTVXrxPO8E
After you vote early, sign up to volunteer: https://t.co/jGIScpYhl8 pic.twitter.com/df7g6gvrOO
“We keep asking ourselves, how can we help? What can we do locally being in California? Should we be knocking on doors?” she said. “So we’re going to go knock on doors for Stacey Abrams. You never know in Hollywood if it helps or hurts, but we’re trying to get out the vote and drive people to the polls.”
Ferrell wasn’t the only celebrity helping Abrams get out the vote this weekend. Actor and rapper Common joined Abrams yesterday for her Souls to the Polls march, which united faith-based communities in Georgia to march to the polls for early voting.
Figure skater Michelle Kwan and actress Rashida Jones have also pitched in on the effort, with Jones participating in canvassing training this weekend, and Kwan knocking on doors for Abrams. Musician John Legend and comedian Kenan Thompson have also supported the Abrams campaign.
Abrams is running a tough campaign against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who has held up the voter registrations of 53,000 Georgians, 70 percent of whom are African-American, under that state’s “exact match” law. He has also purged 340,000 voters from the polls, claiming that the voters had moved or left the country when they had not.
Investigative reporter Greg Palast uncovered the purge earlier this month, saying that Kemp had sent postcards, which could easily be mistaken for a spam mailing, to the voters who hadn’t voted in three years. If they didn’t respond, he purged them from the polls. Those voters will be ineligible to vote in the midterms because the registration deadline has passed.
Kemp is also being sued for potentially subjecting the Georgia voter rolls to Russian hacks in 2016.