Sen. David Perdue was at Georgia Tech's campus campaigning for Republican gubernatorial nominee Brian Kemp. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo Elections Sen. Perdue appears to snatch phone away from student attempting to ask question

Sen. David Perdue appeared to snatch a phone away from a college student attempting Saturday to ask the senator a question about alleged voter suppression.

In the video, posted to the Young Democratic Socialists of America’s Twitter feed, Perdue is asked by a student at Georgia Tech about an Associated Press report which said that over 53,000 voter applications were on hold in Secretary of State Brian Kemp's office. An analysis conducted by the Associated Press found that a majority of those applications in limbo were African American.


Kemp is the Republican nominee for governor. He is running against Democrat Stacey Abrams. Polling shows the race is tight.

In the video, the unidentified student approaches Perdue at Georgia Tech to ask him about the report. Perdue was at the school's campus campaigning for Kemp. The YDSA said the student was a member of the organization.

The student then tries to ask him a question, but Perdue cuts him off.

"How can you endorse a candidate —" the student says as Perdue says, "I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that."

Perdue then appears to take the phone away from the student. It's unclear from the video if it stopped recording or continued.

"You stole my property," the student then says. "You stole my property."

"Alright, you wanted a picture? You wanted a picture?" Perdue says as the student says, "Give me my phone back."

The phone having been returned, Perdue is then seen walking away and talking to someone else.

"That's U.S. Senator David Perdue. U.S. Senator David Perdue just snatched my phone because he won't answer a question from one of his constituents," the student then says. "He's trying to leave. He's trying to leave because he won't answer why he's endorsing a candidate who's trying to purge people from voting on the basis of their race.“

Perdue’s office said the senator thought he was being asked to take a photo with the student. When he realized that wasn’t the case he gave the phone back.

“Senator Perdue spent several hours meeting with hundreds of people at the Georgia Tech game this weekend,” the spokesperson said. “The senator spoke with many students and answered questions on a variety of topics. In this instance, the senator clearly thought he was being asked to take a picture, and he went to take a selfie as he often does. When he realized they didn’t actually want to take a picture, he gave the phone back.”

It's unclear who the student is.

The video follows a collection of civil rights groups filing a lawsuit in response to the Associated Press report. That lawsuit aims to block Kemp's office from enforcing the "exact match" law which says officials have to put on hold voter registration applications if there are even small differences in the paperwork of the application — like minor typos or grammatical errors.

Critics argue that Kemp is using the law to help him in the governor's race. Kemp's office denies that criticism.

The Democratic Party of Georgia released a statement saying the video shows Perdue is unable to defend Kemp's tactics at suppressing the African American vote.

"Brian Kemp surrogate David Perdue resorted to stealing a student's cell phone because he cannot defend the fact that Kemp refuses to resign and continues to engage in voter suppression tactics that disproportionately impact African-Americans in Georgia," spokesman Seth Bringman said. "While Brian Kemp cannot be trusted to run this election, and his surrogates cannot defend his actions, the sad truth for Kemp is that voters of color are fighting back and turning out in unprecedented numbers."

