It's been clear throughout the Georgia governor's race that Republican nominee Brian Kemp has a distinct and disturbing edge over his opponent Stacey Abrams: Kemp is the man responsible for running the election. And he's a fan of the draconian GOP voting policies that are allegedly meant to reduce (virtually nonexistent) voter fraud at the expense of poor, non-white, non-Republican leaning voters. Kemp has tried to freeze the registration of tens of thousands of black voters, and when his office was alerted about a security flaw in voter registration software, he responded by announcing he would sue Georgia Democrats.

While the more than 50,000 voters Kemp's office has flagged can still vote, there are also lots of unofficial barriers the state can put in their way through sheer negligence. Extreme wait times are a big deterrent, and they can keep people from actually getting to a voting booth if they have inflexible job schedules and only so much time to stand in line. And we're seeing that today.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that there are voting machines malfunctioning in the the largest counties in Georgia, and voters are facing hours-long lines.

The most disastrous stories are coming out of Snellville, Georgia, a town of 20,000 people that's almost one-third black. According to NBC News, it's less of a malfunction and more a lack of power cords for voting machines. (Kemp's office, obviously, is responsible for supplying election hardware.) One woman confirmed to the Associated Press that two dozen voters left early because of the lines. Other polling places in Atlanta have lines wrapped around buildings and in at least one case stretched into a parking garage. There are reports that many polling places have too few machines to accommodate all the people showing up to vote, but the problems aren't uniform across the state.

Georgia is also one of only a handful of states where electronic voting machines have no paper back-ups, further jeopardizing election integrity. Despite security experts pointing out the flaws in Georgia's system, Kemp has expressly refused to make updates.

While the race in Georgia is one of the most watched in the country this year, Kemp is actually using the same playbook as another Trump favorite, Kris Kobach, who's running for governor of Kansas while also serving as, wait for it, the secretary of state in a race that's rife with disturbing instances like moving the sole polling place in a majority Hispanic town to outside of town.

This systemic disenfranchisement has always been the biggest obstacle to Democrats reclaiming any kind of power through the ballot box. And so far, nothing Kemp or Kobach have done is even remotely illegal.