Georgia: GOP launches legal war on absentee voting ahead of runoffs | Zach Montellaro and James Arkin/Politico

Federal judges in Georgia will hear arguments Thursday in Republican-led lawsuits to restrict absentee voting ahead of next month’s Senate runoffs — the first salvos in a GOP effort to change voting rules for future elections following President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. Republicans have filed three lawsuits in the state ahead of the Jan. 5 runoffs, in which hundreds of thousands of people have already voted by mail or in person for races that will decide control of the Senate in 2021. The suits primarily target the use of drop-boxes to return absentee ballots, as well as aiming to raise the threshold for signature verifiers to accept absentee ballots. The net result of the suits, which are backed by a combination of local, state and national Republican Party organizations, would make successfully voting by mail harder in Georgia, which Republicans say is necessary to protect the security of the elections — and others claim is an attempt to suppress votes for Democratic candidates. The legal efforts are likely just the start of a yearlong push by state Republicans to tighten voting rules in response to the 2020 election, which prompted unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud from Trump, his supporters and other GOP leaders who are convinced that the contest wasn’t fair. Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, among others, have already announced their intention to seek changes to state election laws next year in response to perceived irregularities, and Trump’s opposition to mail voting in 2020 — coupled with the way those late-counted ballots broke against him in some key states — has destroyed the decades-long bipartisan consensus on expanding the practice.

Full Article: GOP launches legal war on absentee voting ahead of Georgia runoffs – POLITICO

Georgia: Loeffler won’t say whether she’ll formally challenge Biden’s win in Senate | Greg Bluestein/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler won’t say whether she’ll formally challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory when Congress convenes a day after twin Jan. 5 Georgia runoffs to decide control of the U.S. Senate. U.S. Sen. David Perdue won’t have a say even if he wins another term. The two Republicans have refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory and echoed President Donald Trump’s false assertions of widespread voter fraud. They’re under pressure not to alienate the president – and his loyal base – ahead of the high-stakes election. Shortly after she cast her ballot on Wednesday, Loeffler was noncommittal over whether she would join an effort by U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama to challenge Biden’s victory when Congress meets to formally ratify the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. The effort is doomed to fail. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has congratulated Biden on his victory and told his GOP colleagues Tuesday that he wouldn’t back the push to circumvent the voter’s will. Still, some supporters of the president have sought to cast Loeffler, who has relentlessly promoted her pro-Trump voting record, as a wild card who could join the challenge in the Senate. Pressed on her stance, Loeffler said Jan. 6 is a “long ways off.”

Full Article: Loeffler won’t say whether she’ll formally challenge Biden’s win in Senate

Georgia: Raffensperger, Sterling defend election from ‘disinformation’ | Susan McCord/Augusta Chronicle

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger continued efforts Wednesday to dispel disinformation about the Nov. 3 general election as voters turn out in record numbers for U.S. Senate runoffs Jan. 5. “The facts are on our side. There are those that are exploiting the strong feelings so many of President Trump’s supporters have for him,” Raffensperger said at a news conference. “Truth has been a casualty of the campaigns.” The president, Republicans nationwide and Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have assailed Raffensperger, a lifelong Republican, for allegedly mishandling the election. Trump retweeted Tuesday that Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp were “going to jail” for their roles. The National Republican Senatorial Committee said Tuesday that “Republicans are so concerned about the Georgia Secretary of State’s competence.” Republicans Loeffler and Perdue are in high-stakes runoffs with Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Wins by Warnock and Ossoff will shift control of Congress to Democrats. On Thursday, a federal judge in Augusta will hear one of the latest lawsuits alleging the potential for fraud in the use of absentee, mail-in ballots, an unsubstantiated claim raised in earlier suits on Trump’s behalf that judges have dismissed. It contends Raffensperger did not properly require signature matching in the general election and seeks to change the process and remove ballot drop boxes in the runoffs, for which advance voting started Monday.

Full Article: Raffensperger, Sterling defend Georgia election from ‘disinformation’

Georgia to Review Mail-in Ballot Signatures to Boost Confidence in Elections | Alexa Corse/Wall Street Journal

Georgia will audit signatures submitted by absentee voters in one county, after President Trump and his allies called for such a review as they continued to question President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who announced the review on Monday, has said the audit wouldn’t change the outcome of the presidential race in Georgia. “Now that the signature matching has been attacked again and again with no evidence, I feel we need to take steps to restore confidence in our elections,” Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, said Monday at the state Capitol. The secretary of state’s office will work with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to audit signatures in the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County, which is expected to take two weeks, Mr. Raffensperger said. The secretary of state’s office also plans to work with a university to conduct a statewide signature match audit, he said. Also in Georgia, voting is under way for the hotly contested Jan. 5 Senate runoffs, which will determine control of the U.S. Senate. More than 482,000 votes already have been cast, including roughly 314,000 absentee by-mail ballots and 168,000 early in-person votes as of Tuesday morning, the secretary of state’s office said. Election officials were already required to verify signatures before ballots were counted in Georgia. Absentee voters had to sign the outside of the envelope, not the ballot. Election officials had to compare that signature with the voter’s registration file. If the signatures were consistent, the envelopes were then separated from the ballots to protect the privacy of voter’s choices. Election officials also verified signatures on paper applications for an absentee ballot. Mr. Raffensperger has said state investigators haven’t found evidence of widespread fraud. Two recounts, one by hand and one by machine, confirmed Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia.

Full Article: Georgia to Review Mail-in Ballot Signatures to Boost Confidence in Elections – WSJ

Amid a fusillade of baseless claims, Georgia sees a normal start to early voting in Senate runoffs | Cleve R. Wootson Jr./The Washington Post

Around 3 p.m. Monday, Tania Thompson pulled her car into the parking lot of the C.T. Martin Natatorium and Recreation Center for the second time in a day. She and her neighbor had first come to cast their ballots shortly after the early-voting location had opened, but they found a line nearly wrapped around the building. They opted to return in the afternoon, hoping for a shorter line and warmer temperatures. “I want to feel like my voice has been heard,” Thompson, 47, an immigrant originally from Jamaica, told The Washington Post. She said it was especially important at a time when her state is in the national spotlight and its voting system is under attack by President Trump. “It’s nonsense,” she said of the president’s voting fraud claims. “I don’t feel like there is any merit to what he has been saying. All he’s doing is causing division. I just feel like he’s grasping at straws.” Georgia voters streamed to early-voting locations Monday, the first day they could cast ballots in the extraordinary pair of runoffs that will culminate Jan. 5 and determine which party controls the Senate. Voters cast ballots despite — and in some cases because of — the fusillade of baseless claims Trump has directed at Georgia officials in the weeks since he lost the state to President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 general election. For the first time since Trump began to wage his failed effort to overturn the results here and in several other swing states, voting commenced once again — with many casting ballots using the same Dominion machines the president’s allies have falsely claimed were rigged to benefit Biden.

Full Article: Early voting begins in crucial Georgia Senate run-offs amid a fusillade of baseless claims – The Washington Post

Georgia: Governor blasts ‘ridiculous’ attacks over refusal to overturn election | Greg Bluestein/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Gov. Brian Kemp criticized “ridiculous” attacks from fellow Republicans outraged that he won’t call a special session to overturn the election results, as he faces unrelenting criticism from President Donald Trump and his allies infuriated by Joe Biden’s election victory. Although Georgia’s 16 Democratic electors formally cast their ballots for Biden on Monday, Kemp told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he still wasn’t prepared to concede Trump’s defeat, saying he would respect the legal process and “reevaluate that when all that plays out.” Nor did he directly criticize Trump, who overnight called him a “clown” and has openly invited U.S. Rep. Doug Collins to challenge the governor in a Republican primary in 2022. Instead, Kemp expressed frustration that he’s been blamed for following state laws by certifying, and later re-certifying, three separate tallies of roughly 5 million votes. “I’m disappointed in the results so far, in regards to the election, but also I’ve got to follow these laws and the Constitution and that’s what I’m doing,” Kemp said. “It’s a little frustrating that there are some out there who don’t know where these duties fall, and I’m being blamed for a lot of things.” In the interview, he pointed to his record as Secretary of State for much of a decade, saying he fought to “make sure it’s easy to vote and hard to cheat, and that we have secure, accessible and fair elections in the state. “It’s ridiculous, quite honestly, that many are blaming me for being responsible for what happened in the election,” he said.

Full Article: AJC Interview: Kemp blasts ‘ridiculous’ attacks over refusal to overturn election

Georgia orders audit of voter signatures on absentee ballots in Cobb County | Mark Niesse and David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Investigators will audit voter signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in Cobb County, a step announced Monday by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to further verify election results. The move follows intense pressure from President Donald Trump and other Republicans who have continued to make unsupported claims that last month’s election wasn’t legitimate. The review of absentee ballot signatures won’t change the results of the presidential election. Machine and hand counts showed Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia by about 12,000 votes, and the Electoral College voted for Biden on Monday. The unprecedented signature audit could show whether signatures on absentee ballot envelopes really did match the voter signatures kept on file. But there’s no way to match voter signatures to ballots after envelopes were opened. The right to cast a secret ballot is guaranteed by the state Constitution.

Source: Georgia orders audit of voter signatures on absentee ballots in one county

Georgia: Here’s what happened when a state lawmaker scrutinized the Trump campaign’s list of allegedly illegal votes | Michelle Ye Hee Lee/The Washington Post

When Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen (D) reviewed a list of voters who President Trump’s campaign claimed cast illegal ballots in the state, three names caught her eye: two friends and a constituent. For days, Nguyen pored over public records, spoke with voters by phone and even knocked on doors in person to vet the Trump list. She found that it included dozens of voters who were eligible to vote in Georgia — along with their full names and home addresses. On Thursday, when a data analyst who compiled the list told a panel of state lawmakers that it proved thousands of voters cast ballots in Georgia who should not have, Nguyen was ready. “I do want to share with you some of the things that I found that appeared to be incorrect to me,” the two-term lawmaker told Matt Braynard, whose research has been cited in numerous suits filed by Trump and his allies, several of which have been tossed out of the courts. Nguyen’s 10-minute dissection of the data offered a rare real-time fact check of the unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud that the president’s allies have promoted in state hearings around the country, largely before friendly Republican audiences. “If you are going to take the names of voters in the state of Georgia and publish their first, middle and last name, their home address, and accuse them of committing a felony, at the very minimum there should have been an attempt to contact these voters,” she said in an interview after the hearing. “There was no such attempt.” Braynard said in an email to The Washington Post that he “appreciated her feedback and look forward to getting her records that are questionable. I was happy to make a statement and happy to hear feedback and questions.” The episode shows how quickly the allegations by Trump and his supporters have fallen apart under scrutiny, particularly in the courts, which have consistently rejected assertions that rampant irregularities tainted the vote.

 

Full Article: Here’s what happened when a Georgia lawmaker scrutinized the Trump campaign’s list of allegedly illegal votes – The Washington Post

At Georgia House Hearing, Republicans’ Baseless Claims Of Voting Fraud Persist | Stephen Fowler/Georgia Public Broadcasting

For the second week in a row, Georgia Republican lawmakers have invited the Trump campaign and other right-wing witnesses to spread baseless conspiracies and claims of voting fraud under the guise of improving elections in the state. The House Governmental Affairs committee, chaired by Bonaire Republican Shaw Blackmon, spent Thursday morning hearing from witnesses who have supported lawsuits and efforts to overturn Georgia’s certified election results that show President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the presidential race. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, who was just released from the hospital after getting COVID-19, reiterated debunked claims of fraud in Fulton County by playing a short snippet of surveillance footage from State Farm Arena. State investigators and county officials have reiterated that there was no “suitcase” of ballots illegally added into vote totals and that the video shows normal vote-counting processes. Investigators also said that while some partisan monitors left when other election workers were done for the night, that nobody was instructed to leave. Georgia law does not require partisan monitors be present for counting to occur. Giuliani also brought forth several other witnesses who spread conspiracies about voting machines and election results being hacked and repeated claims about widespread absentee ballot fraud.

Full Article: At Georgia House Hearing, Republicans’ Baseless Claims Of Voting Fraud Persist | Georgia Public Broadcasting

Georgia House speaker takes aim at state’s top election official | Mark Niesse and David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

House Speaker David Ralston said Thursday that he will seek a constitutional amendment for state legislators — not voters — to choose Georgia’s top election official, an attempt to blame Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for perceived election problems. Ralston’s proposal came after a hearing in the state House of Representatives where supporters of Donald Trump made unsubstantiated claims of illegal voting following the president’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden by about 12,000 votes. But Ralston’s proposal would face a difficult path, and he lacks the votes to make it a reality without support from Democrats. A constitutional amendment would need to receive two-thirds majorities in both the state House and Senate, followed by majority approval of the state’s voters. Raffensperger’s staff called the move “a clear power grab” following a concerted election misinformation effort featuring Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, during the daylong hearing. Both Raffensperger and Ralston are Republicans. The strike against Raffensperger is the latest sign of a deep divide among Republicans over how to move forward after Georgia supported a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in 28 years. Raltson said he’s “dead serious” about holding Raffensperger accountable to legislators after he mailed absentee ballot applications to nearly 7 million voters before the primary election and instituted greater scrutiny of absentee ballot rejections in a court settlement earlier this year.

Full Article: Proposal introduced for legislators to choose Georgia elections chief

Georgia: ‘It’s surreal’: the US officials facing violent threats as Trump claims voter fraud | Ed Pilkington and Sam Levine/The Guardian

On 1 December Gabriel Sterling, a Republican election official in Georgia, stood on the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta and let rip on Donald Trump. “Mr President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia,” he said, contradicting Trump’s increasingly unhinged claim that he had won the presidential race against all evidence. “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence,” Sterling went on, referring to a storm of death threats and intimidation that had been unleashed by Trump supporters against public officials in the state. “Someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right.” Then Sterling uttered the phrase that instantly entered the annals of American political rhetoric: “It has to stop.” It did not stop. Two days after Sterling’s impassioned speech went viral, Elena Parent, a Democratic state senator in Georgia, turned up for a hearing organized by Republican leaders to try to cast doubt on the election result. Trump attorneys, led by Rudy Giuliani, presented the hearing with a raft of conspiracy theories and baseless claims that tens of thousands of dead people and other ineligible individuals had voted. The Republicans hadn’t warned Parent that the event would be attended by Giuliani, Trump’s henchman in his mission to undermine American democracy until this week when the former New York mayor came down with Covid-19. So she had no idea that a big crowd of far-right fanatics and the media outlets that feed them lies and falsehoods would also be in the chamber. If she had known, she would have been careful to protect her personal details online. And she might not have sent out an anodyne tweet decrying the event accurately as a “sad sham”.

Full Article: ‘It’s surreal’: the US officials facing violent threats as Trump claims voter fraud | US news | The Guardian

Georgia: Trump warns state Attorney General not to rally other Republicans against Texas lawsuit | Greg Bluestein/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

President Donald Trump warned Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr not to rally other Republican officials against a long-shot Texas lawsuit seeking to toss out the state’s election results, according to several people with direct knowledge of the conversation. The roughly 15-minute phone call late Tuesday came shortly before U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue issued a joint statement saying they “fully support” the improbable lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject election results in Georgia and three other battleground states that Trump lost. Earlier in the day, Carr’s office called the lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton “constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.” The complaint asks the justices to delay the Monday deadline for certification of presidential electors in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The two men spoke at the urging of Perdue, who along with Loeffler also received calls from Trump about Carr’s opposition to the lawsuit, according to three Republican officials, two of whom described Trump as “furious” in his call with Loeffler over the attorney general’s stance. Minutes after Trump and Carr hung up, the two senators issued a joint statement proclaiming their support for the Paxton lawsuit. “This isn’t hard and it isn’t partisan. It’s American,” the senators said. “No one should ever have to question the integrity of our elections system and the credibility of its outcomes.”

Full Article: Trump warns Georgia AG not to rally other Republicans against Texas lawsuit

Georgia: Courts jettison more election challenges | David Wickert and Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

The rapid pace of court challenges to Georgia’s presidential election pushed ahead with more lawsuits filed Tuesday, even as judges continue to reject every one of them. A Fulton County judge dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking an audit of the state’s voter registration rolls and absentee ballot envelopes from the November election. It’s the fourth time in recent days courts have rejected pleas to overturn the election. But as that suit failed, more arose. The Texas attorney general sued Georgia to overturn election results here and in three other states where Democrat Joe Biden received the most votes. In addition, a former member of President Donald Trump’s legal team appealed a Monday ruling that dismissed her case in federal court. Meanwhile, the president himself brought a separate lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court. Among other things, the lawsuit alleges tens of thousands of ineligible voters cast ballots in the November election. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said there is no evidence of voting fraud on a scale that would affect the outcome of the election, though his office is investigating more than 250 cases of suspected improprieties. U.S. Attorney General William Barr has said federal investigators also have found no evidence of widespread fraud.

Full Article: Courts jettison more Georgia election challenges

Georgia Senate GOP push for end to no-excuse absentee voting | Ben Nadler/Associated Press

Republicans in Georgia’s state Senate are calling for an end to absentee voting without cause and want to ban ballot drop boxes, after an increase in mail voting helped propel Democrat Joe Biden to a narrow victory over President Donald Trump in the state. Trump has for months made unsubstantiated claims about the integrity of mail-in votes and has made baseless claims of widespread fraud in Georgia’s presidential election. GOP election officials have vehemently and repeatedly disputed those claims, saying there is no evidence of systemic errors or fraud in the November election. Democrats and voting rights groups say the effort by Republicans is anti-Democratic and, if successful, will disenfranchise lawful voters. The state Senate Republican Caucus said in a statement Tuesday that they would push for the changes the next time the legislature convenes, while also shooting down the idea of a special legislative session — which Trump has repeatedly called for in the hopes of subverting the election results. The 2021 legislative session is set to begin Jan. 11. Senate Republicans are also calling for a photo ID requirement for absentee voters who have a specific reason to vote by mail. Biden beat Trump by more than 11,700 votes in Georgia, a result that was confirmed by two recounts — including an audit that triggered a full hand tally of ballots. Biden received nearly double the number of absentee ballots as Trump, according to the secretary of state’s office. Biden got nearly 850,000 absentee votes by mail, compared to just over 450,000 for Trump.

Full Article: Georgia Senate GOP push for end to no-excuse absentee voting

Georgia: Federal judge throws out ‘kraken’ lawsuit challenging election results | Mark Niesse  and David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Monday that relied on conspiracy theories to try to invalidate Georgia election results showing Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten dismissed the lawsuit brought by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell in an attempt to decertify Georgia’s election. He said overturning the election would have amounted to “judicial activism.” “They want this court to substitute its judgment for the 2.5 million voters who voted for Biden,” Batten, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said in court in Atlanta. “This I’m unwilling to do.” The decision leaves Georgia’s results intact, supporting state elections officials’ statements that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday recertified the election results after a second recount again confirmed Biden defeated Trump. Powell’s lawsuit had combined a series of theories, many of them discredited, about how the election could have been rigged for Trump to lose in Georgia.

Full Article: Federal judge throws out ‘kraken’ lawsuit challenging Georgia election results

Georgia Recertifies Election Results, Affirming Biden’s Victory | Richard Fausset and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Georgia election officials on Monday recertified the results of the state’s presidential race after another recount reaffirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump, the third time that results showed that Mr. Trump had lost the state. The announcement delivered the latest blow to Mr. Trump’s tumultuous attempts to subvert the outcome of the election in Georgia, an effort that has caused infighting and name-calling among some Republicans. “We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged,” Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said at a news conference. Mr. Biden has prevailed in three separate counts of the ballots: the initial election tally; a hand recount ordered by the state; and the latest recount, which was requested by Mr. Trump’s campaign and completed by machines. The results of the machine recount on the secretary of state’s website show Mr. Biden with a lead of about 12,000 votes. Mr. Raffensperger’s announcement came less than 48 hours after Mr. Trump appeared in the state at a rally intended to support the candidacies of Georgia’s two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are locked in high-stakes runoff races on Jan. 5 that will determine control of the Senate. The president, however, spent much of his appearance airing a long list of personal grievances over his loss to Mr. Biden in Georgia and elsewhere, claiming falsely that fraudulent voting had stolen the election from him.

Full Article: Georgia Recertifies Election Results, Affirming Biden’s Victory – The New York Times

Georgia: Why Governor Kemp won’t call a special session to illegally overturn election | Greg Bluestein/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Gov. Brian Kemp has already defied President Donald Trump’s calls to illegally overturn Georgia’s election results. Now he and other Republican leaders are shooting down an effort by pro-Trump legislators to demand a special session to brazenly award Georgia’s 16 electoral votes to the GOP. The governor and other Republican leaders first ruled out a special session to help Trump undo Joe Biden’s victory on Nov. 10, and he rejected the president’s extraordinary personal plea to intervene in the election results on Saturday. But Kemp elaborated on his stance late Sunday after four Republican state senators – Brandon Beach, Greg Dolezal, William Ligon and Burt Jones – drafted a petition seeking an emergency special session because of “systemic failures” in the election system. State elections officials have said there is no widespread evidence of fraud and Georgia courts have thrown out several complaints seeking to block the certification of the vote. But Trump’s false narrative of a “stolen” election has seeped deeply into the Georgia GOP and sparked a bitter internal feud. The petition circulating over the weekend seeks to allow the Republican-controlled Legislature to “take back the power to appoint electors.” Jones, one of the organizers, said “untrustworthy” election results compelled the demand. “It is time for our legislative body to do its job,” he said. Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who acknowledged Joe Biden’s victory on CNN on Sunday, issued a lengthy statement detailing that a special session is “not an option that is allowed under state or federal law” – a lengthier way of saying it was illegal. In the 1960s, the General Assembly decided that Georgia’s presidential electors would be determined by the winner of the state’s popular vote. Under Georgia law, the Legislature can only outline a new method of choosing electors if the timing of the vote was shifted from the date set in federal law.

Full Article: Why Kemp won’t call a special session to illegally overturn Georgia’s election

Georgia: Trump calls governor to pressure him for help overturning Biden’s win in the state | Amy Gardner, Colby Itkowitz and Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

President Trump called Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Saturday morning to urge him to persuade the state legislature to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state and asked the governor to order an audit of absentee ballot signatures, the latest brazen effort by the president to interfere in the 2020 election. Hours before he was scheduled to hold a rally in Georgia on behalf of the state’s two GOP senators, Trump pressed Kemp to call a special session of the state legislature for lawmakers to override the results and appoint electors who would back the president at the electoral college, according to two people familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private call. Trump also asked the governor to demand an audit of signatures on mail ballots, something Kemp has previously noted he has no power to do. Kemp declined the president’s entreaty, according to the people. The governor later referred to his conversation with Trump in a midday tweet, noting that he told the president that he’d already publicly advocated for a signature audit. Kemp’s spokesman, Cody Hall, confirmed that the two men spoke. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh declined to comment. The latest example of Trump’s extraordinary personal effort to overturn Biden’s win comes as his legal team has met with resounding failure in its attempts to use the courts to upend the election. On Friday, the president and his allies suffered legal defeats in six states, including decisive rejections in Arizona and Nevada of their claims of fraud and other irregularities.

Full Article: Trump calls Georgia governor to pressure him for help overturning Biden’s win in the state – The Washington Post

Georgia: Pro-Trump election lawsuit may ‘significantly hinder’ preparations for Senate runoffs, state says | Olivia Rubin and Matthew Mosk/ABC

Election officials in Georgia say a federal judge’s recent order to preserve voting machines at the request of attorney Sidney Powell, an ally of President Donald Trump, has the potential to “significantly hinder” their preparations for rapidly-approaching runoff elections that will determine control of the Senate. Powell is the lead lawyer on a number of federal lawsuits arguing that President Trump’s election loss should be reversed — alleging a widespread conspiracy that includes a false claim that voting machines were rigged to flip votes from Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Last week, Judge Timothy C. Batten, Sr., a Bush appointee, blocked the state from “altering, destroying, or erasing” any software or data on the voting machines that were used to tabulate presidential votes in three Georgia counties. The temporary hold is in place until the court can hear arguments on Powell’s demand to inspect the machines. State election officials submitted a new filing Thursday asking the judge to modify or dissolve the order so they can start preparing the machines for the highly-anticipated Senate runoff elections that are just a month away.

Full Article: Pro-Trump election lawsuit may ‘significantly hinder’ preparations for Georgia Senate runoffs, state says – ABC News

Georgia: QAnon harassment campaign reportedly led to noose at contractor’s home | Rachel E. Greenspan/Insider

A harassment campaign within the QAnon conspiracy-theory movement, based on conspiracy theories boosted by President Donald Trump, has led to death threats and a noose at the door of a 20-year-old contractor for Dominion Voting Systems, a Georgia official said. “It all gone too far. All of it,” Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and Georgia’s voting system implementation manager for Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, said in a press conference on Tuesday night. “I can’t begin to explain the level of anger I have right now over this. And every American, every Georgian, Republican and Democrat alike, should have that same level of anger.” Believers in QAnon, a baseless far-right conspiracy theory alleging that Trump is fighting a “deep-state cabal” of pedophiles, have been among the loudest voices claiming without evidence that President-elect Joe Biden’s win was somehow “rigged.” The QAnon community has focused its efforts to undermine the election results on Dominion Voting Systems, an election-software company that was used by several battleground states in the 2020 election. False claims that Dominion’s software was used to change votes for Trump to votes for Biden, which the company and election-security experts have categorically disputed, have continued to spread in the weeks since the November 4 election.

Full Article: QAnon harassment campaign reportedly led to noose at contractor’s home – Insider

Georgia GOP senators say they’ll push election changes in 2021 | Maya T. Prabhu and David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Georgia Republican senators said after what happened in the 2020 election they will seek to make changes in state voting laws during the upcoming legislative session. Democratic nominee Joe Biden beat Republican President Donald Trump in Georgia. Trump has spent the past month claiming fraud, putting pressure on GOP officials who run the state to do something about it because many of his supporters believe his unproven allegations. “I’m going to try to build this statement based on a consensus of what I’m hearing from the people that I represent: We have totally lost confidence in our election system this year,” Senate Republican Whip Steve Gooch of Dahlonega said during a committee hearing Thursday. “I’m here on behalf of those citizens. I have a duty to let you know that this issue isn’t going to go away unless we make some changes.” The hearing was one of two Senate Republican leaders scheduled Thursday. At the second Senate hearing, attorneys for Trump said they planned to file a lawsuit in Fulton County that seeks to overturn the election results. Among other things, they said they had evidence that tens of thousands of ineligible voters cast ballots in the election. And they called on the General Assembly to send a slate of electors to Washington who would elect Trump as president. After the initial hearing in which myriad “problems” in this year’s elections were aired, Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, a Gainesville Republican, said the Senate would pursue legislation to make changes to the election system next year.

Full Article: GOP senators say they’ll push election changes in 2021

Georgia: Voting rights groups sue over removal of registered voters | David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Voting rights groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday that accuses the Georgia secretary of state’s office of improperly removing nearly 200,000 people from the state’s voter registration list last year. The lawsuit says the state removed tens of thousands of voters from the list because it believed they had moved away when, in fact, they had not. It also challenges a “use it or lose it” provision in state law that allows Georgia to purge voters who do not cast ballots for many years. That allowed the state to remove tens of thousands more voters, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta by the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Transformative Justice Coalition and the Rainbow Push Coalition. Latosha Brown, a co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, said at a press conference Wednesday announcing the lawsuit that the purge amounted to “massive-scale voter suppression.” The secretary of state disputed the claim of a faulty voter purge when it first arose in September, and it did so again Wednesday. Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voter system manager, said the office follows federal rules for maintaining its voter registration list. “Let’s not call it a purge,” Sterling said. “It’s federally mandated list maintenance.” Georgia maintains a database of millions of registered voters. It must keep the list up to date to prevent anyone not eligible to vote in Georgia from casting a ballot. It removes voters from the list if they have died, moved away, been convicted of a felony or failed to vote or contact election officials for many years.

Full Article: Voting rights groups sue Georgia over removal of registered voters

Georgia: Trump Allies Discourage Residents From Voting In January Runoff : Biden Transition Updates | Alana Wise/NPR

Georgia allies of President Trump continue to push baseless accusations of voter fraud in an attempt to have the election results overturned, following weeks of news networks, legal bodies and state certification boards affirming the election win for President-elect Joe Biden. At a rally Wednesday, they went even further, discouraging Georgia residents from voting in the Jan. 5 Senate runoff election. Lin Wood, an attorney and prominent Trump supporter in the state, falsely alleged that the election had been “rigged.” In a free-wheeling, conspiracy-laden “Stop the Steal” rally speech, Wood also spoke against Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and urged rally attendees not to vote for the two in the runoff election. “Do not be fooled twice. This is Georgia, we ain’t dumb. We’re not going to go vote on January 5th on another machine made by China. You’re not going to fool Georgians again,” Wood said, pushing the unfounded conspiracy theory that voting machines had been compromised in the Nov. 3 election. “Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election? For God’s sake, fix it. You got to fix it before we’ll do it again,” he continued to resounding cheers from the audience.

Full Article: Trump Allies Discourage Georgia Residents From Voting In January Runoff : Biden Transition Updates : NPR

‘Someone’s going to get killed’: GOP election official in Georgia blames President Trump for fostering violent threats | Amy Gardner and Keith Newell/The Washington Post

A top Republican election official in Georgia lashed out at President Trump during a news conference Tuesday in Atlanta, blaming him for a flood of threats that have besieged his office and calling on the president and other Republicans to condemn the behavior. Gabriel Sterling, a voting systems manager for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, was visibly angry and shaken as he approached a lectern in the Georgia Capitol. “Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language,” he said. “Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. . . . Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.” He added: “That shouldn’t be too much to ask for people who ask us to give them responsibility.” Sterling’s public chastisement represents one of the strongest rebukes yet of Trump’s baseless attacks on the election’s integrity by a member of his own party. The episode revealed a fissure that has been widening within the Republican Party for weeks as Trump has claimed falsely, again and again, that President-elect Joe Biden won through election fraud. Although more and more local and state Republicans have acknowledged Biden’s victory — and said they have seen no evidence of widespread fraud — most national GOP officials, including Georgia’s two U.S. senators seeking reelection in twin runoffs on Jan. 5, have refused to do so.

Full Article: ‘Someone’s going to get killed’: GOP election official in Georgia blames President Trump for fostering violent threats – The Washington Post

Georgia official calls on Trump to stop attacks on election workers | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

A Georgia election official said during an impassioned press conference Tuesday that President Donald Trump and the state’s two U.S. senators’ attacks on voting systems have made them “complicit” in a rising tide of harassment and death threats against election workers. In remarks that lasted about four minutes, Gabriel Sterling, the voting systems implementation manager in the office of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said “the straw that broke the camel’s back” was a series of social-media threats since Monday against a “20-something” technician working for Dominion Voting Systems, which supplies Georgia’s voting equipment and has been the subject of baseless conspiracy theories promoted by Trump and his team of lawyers. The technician, who had been assisting local officials in the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County, began receiving threats after footage of him circulated on far-right social media on Monday. Sterling, a former local elected official who describes himself as a conservative, and Raffensperger, a Republican elected in 2018, have also received days’ worth of harassment and threats from people urging them to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia in the Nov. 3 election, which has already undergone one automatic hand recount and is in the process of completing a machine recount as requested by the Trump campaign. Sterling also said that protesters have gathered outside Raffensperger’s house and also harassed the secretary’s wife.

Full Article: Georgia official calls on Trump to stop attacks on election workers

Georgia State Senate panels to review election integrity | David Wickert and James Salzer/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Senate Committee on Government Oversight will meet Thursday “to evaluate the election process to ensure the integrity of Georgia’s voting process,” several Senate leaders announced Tuesday. Senate Majority Whip Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, said Republican legislators want to begin looking at possible changes to state election laws that may be considered during the 2021 session, which begins in January. “We have to start today on election reform in Georgia,” Gooch said during a call into a North Georgia talk show, BKP Politics. Gooch said “reform” would likely mean making changes to absentee voting, which Democrats used extensively and President Donald Trump disparaged. The subcommittee on Thursday will also hear from Trump backers who have blamed fraud for his loss.

Full Article: Senate panels to review Georgia election integrity

Judge: ‘Precious little proof’ in Georgia election fraud suit | Josh Gerstein/Politico

A judge handling an election-fraud lawsuit brought by allies of President Donald Trump said the case was backed by “precious little proof,” but went on to issue a restraining order aimed at blocking three Georgia counties from making any changes to their voting machines as he considers whether to permit a forensic examination of those systems, according to court records. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten Sr. made the comments during an hour-long Sunday night court hearing on a lawsuit filed last week by Sidney Powell, a firebrand attorney who briefly joined Trump’s legal team in recent weeks before being dismissed from it. The hearing was held via Zoom and not announced in advance on the court’s docket or accessible to the press or public, but it was transcribed by a court reporter who provided the transcript to POLITICO on Monday evening. The transcript shows that Batten repeatedly wavered on whether to grant any relief to the Republican plaintiffs in the case, before settling on the narrow relief limited to three counties. Powell and her colleagues initially wanted all voting machines in the state impounded pending further court action, but the state’s lawyers said that would present a slew of problems, including preventing some local elections set for this week and potentially interfering with the pair of U.S. Senate runoff elections set for Jan. 5. “What the plaintiffs are seeking is basically going to take certain voting equipment out of the equation for the election scheduled to take place this Tuesday, as well as the election scheduled to take place on January 5th, because plaintiffs are wanting us to hold and basically mothball and preserve these machines at the county level — not in our possession, not in our custody and control,” Assistant Attorney General Russ Willard Sr. told Batten.

Full Article: Judge: ‘Precious little proof’ in Georgia election fraud suit – POLITICO

 

Georgia: Judge freezes voting machines in three counties | Josh Gerstein/Politico

A judge assigned to a Republican-led lawsuit alleging widespread fraud in the presidential election in Georgia issued an order late Sunday night blocking plans to wipe or reset voting machines used in three counties in the state. U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten Sr. revealed in his four-page directive that he held a hearing via Zoom Sunday evening on the suit — one of two cases filed in federal courts last week by Sidney Powell, an outspoken Texas attorney who joined President Donald Trump’s legal team earlier this month only to be dismissed from it a few days later. The hearing was not announced on the court’s docket and appears not to have been open to the press or public. It seems to have focused on claims that the election results in Georgia were wildly inaccurate due to use of machines from a leading vendor of voting equipment — Dominion Election Systems. Powell has alleged, based on scant evidence, that the firm’s foreign ties allowed hostile governments to meddle in the U.S. election via a conspiracy that involved both Democratic and Republican U.S. officials. While many Democratic and some Republican officials have dismissed Powell’s claims as a fantasy, some GOP leaders are also warning that the effort to stoke doubt about the just-completed election could depress Republican turnout in a pair of runoff elections set for Jan. 5 in Georgia that could determine whether the GOP or Democrats control the U.S. Senate for the next two years.

Full Article: Judge freezes voting machines in three Georgia counties – POLITICO

 

Georgia: Judge directs state officials not to reset voting machines | Zack Budryk/The Hill

A federal judge on Sunday barred state officials from resetting voting machines used in three Georgia counties. In the four-page order, District Judge Timothy Batten, a George W. Bush appointee, barred officials from “altering, destroying, or erasing, or allowing the alteration, destruction, or erasure of, any software or data on any Dominion voting machine in Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties.” Attorney Sidney Powell, who brought the suit against Gov. Brian Kemp (R), Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and four other election officials, has alleged without evidence that Dominion election systems were tampered with by foreign governments. In a hearing on Sunday, the state officials argued that they do not have authority over county elections officials. Batten agreed to receive a brief from Kemp and Raffensperger detailing their opposition to a “forensic inspection” of the machines, and also ordered the defendants to provide the plaintiffs with the state’s contract with the company. However, he also certified the temporary hold for appeal, allowing Raffensperger and Kemp to immediately appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit. He noted in an order on Monday morning that the case may benefit from an appeal, appearing to acknowledge jurisdictional questions about the lawsuit.

Source: Judge directs state officials not to reset Georgia voting machines | TheHil

 

Georgia: Kemp to Trump: Law blocks him from ‘interfering’ with elections | Greg Bluestein/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Gov. Brian Kemp’s office responded Monday to President Donald Trump’s demands to help him overturn Georgia’s election results with a reminder that state law “prohibits the governor from interfering in the election.” The Georgia Republican has become a favorite target of Trump, who said Sunday he was “ashamed” that he endorsed him in 2018 and tweeted Monday that the “hapless” governor should use non-existent “emergency powers.” “Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order,” said Kemp spokesman Cody Hall. “As the governor has said repeatedly, he will continue to follow the law and encourage the Secretary of State to take reasonable steps – including a sample audit of signatures – to restore trust and address serious issues that have been raised.” The governor has been largely silent for weeks over Trump’s attacks, which have escalated after he became the first Republican to lose Georgia in a presidential vote in nearly 30 years. He said in a previous interview that he understands Trump’s “frustration” but that the law clearly sets out his duties. The criticism could haunt Kemp through the 2022 midterms, when he is gearing up to face Stacey Abrams in a likely rematch. It appears increasingly possible that he might first have to survive a primary challenge from a Trump-backed adversary — perhaps Doug Collins, a four-term congressman now leading the president’s Georgia recount effort.

Full Article: Kemp to Trump: Georgia law blocks him from ‘interfering’ with elections