Georgia

Georgia:  Confidential 2020 election files copied by Atlanta tech firm | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta-based tech firm SullivanStrickler says it had “no reason to believe” there was anything illegal about sending four of its employees to a South Georgia county to copy every election file they could find: memory cards that store votes, ballot scanners, and an election server. The company asserted this week it was doing legitimate work in January 2021 at the behest of Sidney Powell, an attorney for then-President Donald Trump who had promised on national TV to “unleash the kraken” of claims that the presidential election was rigged. But SullivanStrickler hasn’t explained its justification for copying confidential data, besides a statement that the firm was preserving election records under Powell’s direction. The company then distributed the data to election deniers and billed Powell $26,000 for the job. The GBI recently opened a criminal investigation of computer trespass, which is a felony. The sensitive election data collected by SullivanStrickler, which also gathered election files in Antrim County, Michigan, soon reached the hands of conspiracy theorists who were seeking to reverse the outcome of the election that Trump lost. The files from Georgia or Michigan were downloaded by individuals such as a Texas meteorologist who promoted election falsehoods on social media, a former pro surfer who alleged the election was manipulated, and a right-wing podcaster, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Full Article: Confidential 2020 election files copied by Atlanta tech firm in South Georgia county

Georgia: Lindsey Graham Resists Testifying in Trump Investigation | Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset/The New York Times

Six days after major news organizations declared Donald J. Trump the loser of the 2020 presidential election, his allies were applying a desperate full-court press in an effort to turn his defeat around, particularly in Georgia. The pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell went on television claiming that there was abundant evidence of foreign election meddling that never ultimately materialized. Another lawyer, L. Lin Wood, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the certification of Georgia’s election results. That same day, Nov. 13, 2020, Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican and one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters, made a phone call that left Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, immediately alarmed. Mr. Graham, he said, had asked if there was a legal way, using the state courts, to toss out all mail-in votes from counties with high rates of questionable signatures. The call would eventually trigger an ethics complaint, demands from the left for Mr. Graham’s resignation and a legal drama that is culminating only now, nearly two years later, as the veteran lawmaker fights to avoid testifying before an Atlanta special grand jury that is investigating election interference by Mr. Trump and his supporters.

Full Article: Lindsey Graham Resists Testifying in Trump Investigation in Georgia – The New York Times

Georgia County Commissioners pass resolution urging lawmakers to remove QR codes from elections | Isaiah Singleton/Cherokee Tribune & Ledger-News

The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday urging the Georgia legislature to eliminate the QR codes used in the statewide voting system. Commission Chairman Harry Johnston said the board received many requests from the public to change the voting system in Cherokee County, but does not have the power to do it. “We’ve researched it, our attorney has researched it, and we’ve determined that we don’t have that power, while there are some points in the law that might seem to indicate we do, the preponderance of the law clearly says that we do not and so we just can’t do that,” he said. “Furthermore, I’m not sure we really would want to change Cherokee County in a way that would be unique from other counties. My personal belief is that 159 different voting systems across Georgia would not necessarily move us toward greater election integrity, but it might actually move us away from that.” In May, over 100 protesters gathered at the Albert Stone Elections Building in Canton to call for the elections board to hand count ballots from the May 24 primary. They said they had concerns about the state’s voting machines, specifically the QR codes, which they said were “unverifiable” and “illegible.”
Full Article: Commissioners pass resolution urging Georgia lawmakers to remove QR codes from elections | Local News | tribuneledgernews.com

Georgia: Giuliani Is Told He Is a Target in Trump Election Inquiry | Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim/The New York Times

The legal pressures on Donald J. Trump and his closest allies intensified further on Monday, as prosecutors informed his former personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, that Mr. Giuliani was a target in a wide-ranging criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia. The notification came on the same day that a federal judge rejected efforts by another key Trump ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, to avoid giving testimony before the special grand jury hearing evidence in the case in Atlanta. One of Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers, Robert Costello, said in an interview that he was notified on Monday that his client was a target. Being so identified does not guarantee that a person will be indicted; rather, it usually means that prosecutors believe an indictment is possible, based on evidence they have seen up to that point. Mr. Giuliani, who as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer spearheaded efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power, emerged in recent weeks as a central figure in the inquiry being conducted by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., which encompasses most of Atlanta. Earlier this summer, prosecutors questioned witnesses before the special grand jury about Mr. Giuliani’s appearances before state legislative panels in December 2020, when he spent hours peddling false conspiracy theories about secret suitcases of Democratic ballots and corrupted voting machines.

Full Article: Giuliani Is a Target in Georgia’s Trump Election Inquiry, Lawyer Says – The New York Times

Georgia: Courtroom showdowns ahead for Atlanta-based grand jury examining Trump and 2020 election | Bill Rankin and Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Courtroom showdowns and appearances involving high-profile figures are on deck this week as part of the ongoing Fulton County investigation into what happened in Georgia after the 2020 presidential election. Rudy Giuliani, who represented former President Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the election results in a half-dozen swing states, is scheduled to appear Tuesday before the special purpose grand jury aiding the investigation. Attorneys for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a key ally of Trump’s, will go to federal court on Wednesday to fight a grand jury subpoena. And two other lawyers connected to the Trump campaign are teeing up challenges of their own in New Mexico and Colorado. Giuliani will certainly be asked about his appearances before two state legislative panels in December 2020. During three hearings, the former New York City mayor claimed widespread fraud infected Georgia’s presidential election. Giuliani showed an edited tape of ballots being counted in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena that he said was a “powerful smoking gun.” Both state and federal investigators have said Giuliani’s claims were baseless. Yet Giuliani continued to repeat those falsehoods, his subpoena alleges.

Full Article: Courtroom showdowns ahead for Atlanta-based grand jury examining Trump and 2020 election

Georgia: Probe of Coffee County’s 2020 election conduct revives Georgia voting machine lawsuit | Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder

A long-running federal lawsuit challenging the security of Georgia’s voting system is now entangled in a dispute over the handling of an investigation into allegations that 2020 election skeptics illegally breached a county’s voting system. Attorneys representing the Coalition for a Good Governance and other election security advocates will attempt to wrap up depositions in the coming weeks and obtain other evidence regarding accusations that Coffee County elections officials granted activists access to the Dominion Voting System that is a frequent target of conspiracy theories tied to Republican President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Among the dozen Coffee County-related subpoenas filed in U.S. District Court Northern District of Georgia is one last month for Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, whose firm was behind the shoddy audit of Arizona’s Maricopa County in its administration of the 2020 presidential election. Cyber Ninjas is connected to digital security executive Benjamin Cotton, who has claimed in another investigation that he forensically examined voting systems in Coffee County and several other battleground states. The state election officials removed the county’s election server shortly after a newly hired Coffee County election director notified the state that the password no longer worked and that he found Logan’s business card on an office computer in April 2021. In recent court filings, the plaintiffs’ lawyers accuse the secretary of state’s office of withholding information and allege that the state purposefully delayed investigating a breach that threatens a system the state has fiercely defended.

Full Article: Probe of Coffee County’s 2020 election conduct revives Georgia voting machine lawsuit – Georgia Recorder

Georgia Prosecutor Has Donald Trump in Her Sights, and She’s Not Stopping | Norman Eisen and Amy Lee Copeland/The New York Times

Now that the House Jan. 6 committee’s initial hearings have concluded, this is a useful time to evaluate their actual impact. For that, we should look not to Washington but well south of the Capitol, to Atlanta. That’s because the hearings have turbocharged the investigation by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, into possible election interference and offenses by Donald Trump and his allies. Any charges in that investigation may define a big part of the committee’s legacy, even as it looks to extend its work into the fall. Normally, the primary question after congressional revelations like those we have heard would be whether there would be federal charges, as in Watergate. Here, the Justice Department may be contemplating possible actions, but Ms. Willis is further along. Her flurry of target letters to Georgians who formed an alternate slate of 2020 presidential electors strongly suggests she is considering charges. Ms. Willis has operated with calculated urgency since she opened her investigation in February 2021. She has moved from building a prosecution team and conducting voluntary interviews to convening a special grand jury to issuing those target letters (at least 16 of them) to the Republican electors who, despite Mr. Trump’s election loss in the state, covertly met to cast votes for him and submit an alternate electoral slate on Dec. 14.

Full Article: Opinion | This Georgia Prosecutor Has Donald Trump in Her Sights, and She’s Not Stopping – The New York Times

New Georgia election law allows any resident to challenge another voter’s eligibility | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Bearing long lists of voters’ names, a determined group of Republicans is asking local election boards to cancel thousands of Georgia voter registrations, using a new power bestowed by the state’s voting law. These amateur operatives are trying to purge the registrations of people who they suspect have moved away based on voter lists, address records or property tax documents. They’re relying on Georgia’s law passed last year in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election that allows any voter to challenge the eligibility of an unlimited number of their neighbors, an effort that’s taking place outside the routine government-run process of removing people who have moved or died. It’s voter against voter, with conservatives taking matters into their own hands to police Georgia’s voter list. No fraud has been proved among registrants who moved from Georgia or used P.O. boxes as their addresses. These aggressive efforts to cancel voters jeopardized eligible voters such as Tracy Taylor, who is homeless and registered to vote at the address of a post office near historically Black colleges on Atlanta’s Westside. “If I had a residential address, I would be using it,” Taylor told the Fulton County elections board this month. “I’m trying to get back to a normal life.”

Full Article: New Georgia election law allows any resident to challenge another voter’s eligibility

Georgia: Driven by voter skepticism, several counties seek election audits | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The elections board in rural Pickens County voted Tuesday to ask a judge to unseal ballots from this year’s primary, the latest attempt in heavily Republican areas to audit Georgia election results. If a court agrees, election workers would conduct a hand count of over 7,600 ballots cast in Republican races for governor and secretary of state to check the accuracy of results tabulated by voting computers. Election board members said they sought the audit in response to residents who distrust Georgia’s election equipment, manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems, which uses touchscreens to print out paper ballots. “I implore this board to search your hearts in the name of voter confidence and transparency, and to not allow the fear of the unknown to stop you from doing what is right,” Republican board member Mike Carver said before the vote.

Full Article: Elections boards in several rural Georgia counties pursue audits

Georgia: Lindsey Graham Tries Again to Quash Election-Probe Subpoena | Margaret Newkirk/Bloomberg

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham is trying again to avoid testifying before a special purpose grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, filing a motion to quash his subpoena in a South Carolina federal court. The grand jury, convened by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is investigating President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the Georgia results of the 2020 federal election. Graham made two phone calls to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the weeks following the election, according to the July 5 subpoena. At the time, Raffensperger said publicly that he believed Graham was urging him to find a way to throw out legitimately cast mail-in ballots. Graham has denied that. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney rejected Graham’s first attempt to quash the subpoena on July 11 and ordered him to appear before the grand jury Aug. 2. Graham filed the new request to quash the subpoena July 12 in Anderson, South Carolina. He claims he was acting in his role as a US Senator and can’t be compelled to testify. He claims in the filing that Willis is asking him to testify in person for seven weeks which would interfere with his Senate duties. A spokesman for Willis’ office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Full Article: Lindsey Graham Tries Again to Quash Georgia Election-Probe Subpoena – Bloomberg

Georgia: ‘Extremely confident’: Cherokee County finishes election audit | Shannon Ballew/Cherokee Tribune and Ledger-News

Source: ‘Extremely confident’: Cherokee finishes election audit | Local News | tribuneledgernews.com

An end to ballot bar codes? Georgia election officials consider design changes | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Article: An end to ballot bar codes? Georgia election officials consider design changes

Georgia: Subpoenas seek info on attempt to copy election data in Coffee County | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Subpoenas sent this month are seeking evidence of whether election conspiracy theorists gained unauthorized access to Georgia voting equipment and copied sensitive files in Coffee County after the 2020 election. The subpoenas demand documents including ballot images, election data, computer software and the identities of who funded the endeavor. The subpoenas, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, were issued by plaintiffs in an ongoing election security lawsuit against Georgia. In addition, the secretary of state’s office recently opened a separate investigation into allegations of a breach in Coffee County, located about 200 miles south of Atlanta. The Georgia allegation is the latest example of attempts to gain access to voting computers after Republican Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, similar to incidents in Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump supporters claimed there was fraud and blamed elections equipment manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems. Recounts, court cases and investigations have repeatedly upheld the election, which Democrat Joe Biden won by less than 12,000 votes in Georgia. Dominion has sued over the unfounded allegations. A year and a half after the presidential election, it remains unclear whether Coffee County election computers were compromised by individuals pursuing evidence of fraud. Flight records provided by FlightAware.com show a plane from Atlanta visited the county on Jan. 7, 2021 — the day after the Capitol riot in Washington.

Full Article: Subpoenas seek info on attempt to copy election data in Coffee County

Georgia secretary of state Raffensperger, defied Trump in 2020, but voting rights groups slam policies | Catherine Buchaniec, Annie Klingenberg and Julia Shapero/USA Today

 It started with a phone call in early 2021. Soon the money flowed in, the media descended and what would typically be a sleepy race for the chief election official in Georgia quickly became one of the most-watched races of the 2022 primary elections. When Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger defeated a congressman aligned with former President Donald Trump in the Republican primary in May, many hailed his victory as a vindication over lies that the 2020 presidential election results were fraudulent. And Raffensperger’s testimony before the House committee probing the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack burnished that view for many, as he testified about the threats he and his family have received because he refused Trump’s demands to “find” votes and overturn the state’s 2020 election results. But Democrats and various voting rights groups say Raffensperger’s no hero — he’s an official with a history of supporting voter suppression policies. There was “a voter suppressor versus an election denier in the primary,” said Jena Griswold, the chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, ahead of the May 24 election. Secretary of state elections rarely gain national attention. But the job has taken on new significance as Trump-endorsed candidates espouse rhetoric doubting the validity of the 2020 election. “They make the races an existential threat to democracy,” Griswold said.

Full Article: Raffensperger, Georgia secretary of state, faces scrutiny on voting

Georgia: Court filing offers new evidence of post-election breach in Coffee County | Emma Brown and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Full Article: Court filing offers new evidence of post-election breach in Coffee County, Georgia – The Washington Post

Georgia Republican candidates call for recount in Chatham County, statewide after Dekalb County recount | Will Peebles/Savannah Morning News

A trio of Savannah Republicans who lost their primary election races on May 24 are seeking a recount. Chatham Elections Supervisor Billy Wooten says he won’t be asking the secretary of state for one. Chatham Board of Elections candidates Robin Greco and Jennifer Salandi have joined fellow Savannahian Jeanne Seaver, who ran for lieutenant governor, in her call for a recount. The push follows a recount in Dekalb County prompted by voting equipment issues. Chatham did not have the same scope of issues seen in Dekalb. Seaver, who finished last in the lieutenant governor primary with 7.5% of the vote, has formally petitioned Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for a statewide recount. Contacted Friday, Seaver said that if there were discrepancies in Dekalb, the Secretary of State’s office has an obligation to investigate whether there were similar issues with the Dominion voting system machines statewide. It’s not about her winning or losing, she said. “It’s all about the right thing to do. They did it in one county because someone requested it. What about the 158 other counties?” Seaver said.

Full Article: GA Republicans question Dominion voting machines, call for recount

Georgia Candidate Who Appeared to Get Few Votes Was Actually in 1st Place | Neil Vigdor/The New York Times

Full Article: Georgia Candidate Who Appeared to Get Few Votes Was Actually in 1st Place – The New York Times

Georgia: Revealed: election conspiracy theorists work as election officials across state | Justin Glawe/The Guardian

The effort to install local election officials who promote Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen has seen particular success in the crucial swing state of Georgia, where at least eight county election officials are promoters of the falsehood, a Guardian investigation has found. The officials span the state, from suburban counties outside Atlanta to rural counties near the Tennessee and Alabama borders. All have substantial power over the administration of local, state and national elections in their counties, often with little oversight beyond scantly attended public meetings and small-town newspapers. … The investigation looked at seven counties out of 159, meaning the number of election officials who support election conspiracy theories could be much higher. “These disturbing facts bring to light what we’ve known for a while: support for the big lie is growing – the result of powerful political actors stoking a dangerous fire,” the voting rights group New Georgia Project said in a statement.

Full Article: Revealed: election conspiracy theorists work as election officials across Georgia | Donald Trump | The Guardian

Georgia election board sidesteps calls for paper ballots while possible server breach under investigation | Doug Richards/11alive.com

Full Article: Paper ballots unlikely after election server breach allegation | 11alive.com

Georgia: Miscount in DeKalb County race caused by voting computer programming errors | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Article: Botched vote count in DeKalb race caused by Georgia programming mistake

Georgia county under scrutiny after claim of post-election breach | Emma Brown and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Full Article: Coffee County, Georgia, under scrutiny after claim of post-election breach – The Washington Post

Georgia: Judge says Perdue’s election fraud claims are ‘conjecture and paranoia’ | David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Article: Judge: Perdue’s election fraud claims are ‘conjecture and paranoia’

Georgia early voting check-in system restored after outage | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Article: Georgia early voting check-in system restored after outage

Georgia restores automatic voter registration after sharp decrease in 2021 | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Article: Georgia restores automatic voter registration after sharp decrease in 2021

Georgia election worker who was target of false 2020 accusations receives Profile in Courage Award | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Article: Georgia election worker who was target of false 2020 accusations receives Profile in Courage Award

Georgia: Voting rights trial opens with disputes over election hurdles | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia: Many harried election officials are eyeing the exit. But new workers are stepping up | Stephen Fowler/NPR

When Dorothy Glisson, president of Georgia’s association of election officials, scanned the room at a conference last month to highlight years of service in voting, there were only a few grizzled veterans with decades of experience under their belts. In fact, the bustling convention center near the campus of the University of Georgia was teeming with relatively fresh faces from across the state. “I would say that we’ve probably got as many first-time attendees as we do all of the others put together, so that tells us something,” Glisson said to a crowd of about 500. The event brought together local board members, election supervisors and staff for three days of training — on everything from conducting post-election audits to verifying absentee ballots under newly passed rules — before frenzied preparations for the state’s May 24 primary election begin in earnest. And the new faces in the crowd underscored that while many election workers are eyeing the exits amid a contentious national environment, a new crop of public servants is stepping in to fill the void.

Full Article: Meet some of the new people stepping up to run elections : NPR

Georgia senators vote to strip controversial parts of elections bill | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Georgia Senate committee voted unanimously Tuesday to remove every contentious proposal from a broad elections bill, discarding plans for GBI fraud investigations, paper ballot inspections and funding limitations. The decision to advance a stripped-down bill sets up a showdown in the final days of this year’s legislative session, when lawmakers will attempt to negotiate a final version. The Senate Ethics Committee scrapped much of the bill after hearing testimony Monday from several county election officials who opposed strict ballot handling rules and restrictions on outside donations from nonprofit organizations. One elections supervisor called its requirements little more than “security theater.” Senators shrank the 39-page bill to a two-page measure Tuesday, leaving only a requirement that businesses give workers up to two hours off to vote either on election day or during three weeks of early voting. Under current law, workers are only entitled to time off to vote on election day.

Full Article: Georgia senators vote to strip controversial parts of elections bill

Georgia Local Election Officials Oppose G.O.P. Election Bill | Maya King and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

A year ago, when Georgia Republicans passed a mammoth law of election measures and voting restrictions, many local election officials felt frustrated and sidelined, as their concerns about resources, ballot access and implementation went largely ignored. This year, Republicans have returned with a new bill — and the election officials are pushing back. A bipartisan coalition of county-level election administrators — the people who carry out the day-to-day work of running elections — is speaking out against the latest Republican measure. At a legislative hearing on Monday, they warned that the proposal would create additional burdens on a dwindling force of election workers and that the provisions could lead to more voter intimidation. “You’re going to waste time, and you’re going to cause me to lose poll workers,” said Joel Natt, a Republican member of the Forsyth County board of elections, referring to a provision in the bill that he said would force workers to count hundreds of blank sheets of paper. “I have 400 poll workers that work for our board. That is 400 people that I could see telling me after May, ‘Have a nice life,’ and it’s hard enough to keep them right now.” Among other provisions, the bill would expand the reach of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation over election crimes; limit private funding of elections; empower partisan poll watchers; and establish new requirements for tracking absentee ballots as they are verified and counted.

Full Article: Local Election Officials in Georgia Oppose G.O.P. Election Bill – The New York Times

Georgia: Investigation blames human error for issues in Fulton County election audit | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Full Article: State Election Board advances case alleging problems in Fulton recount