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

A Fulton County elections worker targeted by harassment and conspiracy theories after the 2020 election, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, has won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Moss is one of five people being honored for their roles in protecting democracy. The recipients were announced Thursday by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Former President Donald Trump and his supporters falsely accused Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, of rigging the election by counting absentee ballots stored in hidden “suitcases” at State Farm Arena on election night. Election investigations and publicly available videos showed no improprieties. Even after election officials debunked fraud allegations, Moss faced death threats and racist taunts, forcing her to go into hiding. “Despite the onslaught of random, undeserved, and malicious attacks, Moss continues to serve in the Fulton County Department of Registration & Elections doing the hard and unseen work to run our democracy,” the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation said.

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

 

A major voting rights trial launched Monday with allegations that Georgia has erected “a series of roadblocks” to casting a ballot, and a response that the case attempts “a wholesale attack” on the state’s election system. Opening statements by each side marked a stark contrast in the federal trial, where a judge will hear testimony over the next month to determine if Georgia’s elections procedures illegally burden eligible voters. It’s the first voting rights case to make it to trial in Atlanta’s federal courts in at least a decade, the culmination of a lawsuit filed by allies of Democrat Stacey Abrams after her close loss to Republican Brian Kemp in the 2018 race for governor. As the trial begins 3 1/2 years later, Abrams and Kemp are again running for governor, but a decision in the case isn’t expected until after Georgia’s May 24 primary.

Full Article: Opening of Georgia voting rights trial focuses on ‘exact match’ rules

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

Georgia election investigators reported Wednesday that they found repeated human errors during an unofficial hand recount of the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, but the overall results appeared to be correct. The State Election Board then voted 3-1 to refer the case to the attorney general’s office for further investigation into whether Fulton’s elections office violated election rules. Investigators reviewed Fulton’s recount in response to concerns raised by Gov. Brian Kemp, who told the board in a November letter that he had vetted allegations of inconsistencies in the hand recount, part of a statewide audit of all 5 million ballots cast. Overall, the results of the hand recount — both in Fulton and all of Georgia — were similar to two machine counts, showing that Democrat Joe Biden won the state by about 12,000 votes against Republican Donald Trump. Two Houston County residents had claimed to Kemp there were batches of Fulton ballots with 100% of votes for Biden, duplicated batches and incorrect data. The investigation indicated that the allegations can be explained by mistakes by election workers during the first-ever statewide election audit, which included a review of over 525,000 Fulton paper ballots.

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

Georgia: Poll closure plan defeated in rural Lincoln County | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Election officials in rural Lincoln County on Wednesday voted against closing all seven of the county’s polling places, a plan that would have replaced them with one new central voting location. The unanimous decision to keep every polling place open followed months of protests and petition drives objecting to the proposal, saying it would limit voter access in the county, located north of Augusta. “The voters of Lincoln County spoke loud and clear on the proposals to consolidate polling locations,” said Cindy Battles of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a voting rights group that helped organize opposition to the poll closure plan. “We are incredibly happy the board of elections listened to them.” The elections board backed down from the poll closure idea in response to resistance that began late last year. Voting rights organizations gathered hundreds of signatures on petitions in January that blocked some of the poll closures from moving forward. Under Georgia law, a petition signed by at least 20% of registered voters in a precinct can prevent its closure.

Full Article: Rural Georgia county votes to keep all precincts open after protests

Georgia’s race to oversee voting pits an election denier against an election defender | Miles Parks/NPR

Over cheeseburgers, onion rings and fried chicken salads, people shared what they’d heard. Something “crooked” was going on across the country. In California, for instance, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom hadn’t actually won his recall election last year by the 3 million votes that was reported. “They found boxes of ballots months later, all for the other guy,” someone whispered. The TV over the bar at the Flying Machine restaurant in Lawrenceville, Ga., was turned to Fox News, and Republicans gathered to talk about what they’ve been talking about for much of the past year and a half: voter fraud. “How many feel that the 2020 elections were a little sketchy?!” asked DeKalb County GOP Chair Marci McCarthy, to cheers. “Everybody should be raising their hands!” The restaurant event was the 12th and final stop in a three-day “election integrity” tour put on by one of the nation’s preeminent election deniers, Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga. Hice objected to the 2020 election results at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, just hours after it had been stormed by a violent pro-Trump mob. And now, the former pastor is running to oversee voting in Georgia as the secretary of state.

Full Article: Georgia secretary of state race pits Hice against Raffensperger : NPR

Transparency or conspiracy? Bill seeks public ballot reviews | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It was a rare bipartisan election proposal: Make paper ballots public in Georgia so anyone who doubted election results could see for themselves. But a bill to make that idea a reality quickly sparked resistance. Opponents fear the legislation would enable endless “audits” driven by losing candidates who will never accept defeat, turning any ambiguity or mistake into the next stolen election claim. Democrats withdrew support for the measure following criticism from Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group that Democrat Stacey Abrams started, concerned that the proposal would do more to undermine elections than increase confidence in them. Georgia election officials conducted three ballot counts and repeated investigations of the 2020 election, finding isolated problems but no widespread fraud. Nonetheless, former President Donald Trump and some of his supporters have continued to spread conspiracy theories about the results. The bill’s backers say it would allow the public to verify elections, identify errors, detect counting mistakes and hold election officials accountable. Republican state Rep. Shaw Blackmon, the bill’s lead sponsor, said transparency is the key to building trust in elections. “This bill would give voters more confidence and help them understand more thoroughly our process,” said Blackmon, who represents Bonaire. “Both parties wanted a paper ballot because people are more comfortable working with real documents. And this makes those documents open to public inspection.”

Full Article: Bill would bring public ballot inspections to Georgia

Georgia: Cybersecurity agency reviews hacking risk to voting system | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

A confidential report alleging Georgia’s voting touchscreens could be hacked is now being reviewed by the federal government. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency wrote in a court filing late Thursday that it will assess potential vulnerabilities and decide whether updates or patches are needed to mitigate risks. CISA’s action came in response to a report by a computer scientist who said votes could be changed if someone gained physical access to Georgia’s voting touchscreens or election management computers. Georgia election officials say the state’s voting systems are secure and that vulnerabilities discovered in a lab would be difficult to exploit in a real election. There’s no indication that Georgia’s election computers manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were hacked in the 2020 election, but an ongoing election security lawsuit alleges the touchscreens could be exploited in future elections. Three ballot counts and multiple investigations checked the 2020 election results. Both Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and plaintiffs in the lawsuit have called for a redacted version of the hacking report to be made public, but CISA urged a judge not to disseminate further information for now.

 

Full Article: Feds assessing allegation of vulnerability in Georgia voting system

Georgia: Investigation undercuts claim that 1,000 people voted twice | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

After the hectic 2020 Georgia primary, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made a bombshell allegation from the steps of Liberty Plaza outside the Georgia Capitol that 1,000 people potentially voted twice. A year and a half later, an investigation by his own office has found less double voting than he had suspected. Most of Raffensperger’s allegation couldn’t be proved, the latest claim of voting fraud surrounding the 2020 election that fell short under scrutiny. Unlike former President Donald Trump’s false claims about his election being stolen, investigators validated some of Raffensperger’s assertions of double voting. The secretary of state’s office disclosed preliminary findings of its double voting investigation in response to requests by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The investigation so far indicates about 300 voters cast two ballots in the June 2020 primary and August 2020 primary runoff, almost always because of mistakes by confused voters and poll workers. The number of double voters could rise because about 100 cases remain under investigation.

Full Article: Investigation undercuts claim that 1,000 people voted twice in Georgia

Georgia debates if voting machines too vulnerable to hacking? | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

There’s a long-running and complicated fight over how much security is necessary to protect elections against hacking. A brewing controversy in Georgia illustrates this perfectly. A judge may soon release a sealed report which was prepared as part of a years-long lawsuit over the security of Georgia’s voting machines. Its author, Alex Halderman, was given rare access to dig through the machines and look for ways to hack them. He said in a declaration filed in the case that he found multiple vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to install malicious software and undermine elections. Halderman, who runs the University of Michigan’s Center for Computer Security and Society, is an expert for the plaintiffs in the case, a group of Georgia voters who want the state to replace its touch-screen voting machines that produce paper records with hand-marked paper ballots that they say are far more secure. Georgia election officials see things differently. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) says Halderman’s claims are overblown and that the bugs he found couldn’t reasonably be exploited in an actual election. He compared Halderman’s findings — discovered over 12 weeks of probing the machines — to “having the keys and alarm codes to a home then claiming he found a way to break in.” The report, which could be made public as early as this week, could shed new light on a battle between security advocates and election officials that burst into public view after the 2016 contest was marred by Russian interference. Russian hackers penetrated voter rolls in at least two states during that contest, but there’s no evidence they changed any votes. 

Full Article: Are voting machines too vulnerable to hacking? Georgia’s having that debate – The Washington Post

Georgia: Secret report alleges potential flaw in ballot marking devices | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

A confidential report alleges that hackers could flip votes if they gained access to Georgia’s touchscreens, drawing interest from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Louisiana election officials and Fox News. One key agency hasn’t asked the court to disclose the report: the Georgia secretary of state’s office. There’s no sign that state election officials have done anything about the vulnerability, a potential flaw dangerous enough to be kept under seal, labeled in court as “attorneys’ eyes only” six months ago. The vulnerability hasn’t been exploited in an election so far, according to examinations of the state’s Dominion Voting Systems equipment, but election security experts say it’s a risk for upcoming elections this year. Investigations have repeatedly debunked allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. Georgia election officials won’t say what actions they’ve taken, if any, to improve security or detect tampering. State election officials declined to answer questions about a report they haven’t seen, which outlined the flaw as part of a lawsuit aimed at forcing the state to abandon its $138 million voting system that prints out paper ballots and instead use paper ballots filled out by hand. Several election integrity advocates said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger shouldn’t ignore the issue, even if he believes existing protections would prevent illicit access to voting equipment. “It’s really concerning that the Georgia secretary of state and Dominion are kind of putting their head in the sand,” said Susan Greenhalgh, an election security consultant for plaintiffs suing over Georgia’s voting system. “Common sense would say you would want to be able to evaluate the claims and then take appropriate action, and they’re not doing any of that.”

 

Full Article: Secret report alleges potential flaw in Georgia voting machines

Georgia: Judge is asked to release report on alleged voting vulnerability | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Both Georgia election officials and critics of the state’s voting touchscreens asked a federal judge Thursday to release a confidential report that describes how a hacker could attempt to change votes. The calls for disclosure come a day after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an article on the findings of University of Michigan computer science professor Alex Halderman, who detailed vulnerabilities of Georgia’s voting equipment in a sealed court document. There’s no sign of tampering with the state’s Dominion Voting Systems equipment in the 2020 election, according to audits and experts, but Halderman’s report outlined risks for upcoming elections this year. Halderman is an expert for plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to replace Georgia’s voting system that prints out paper ballots, instead using paper ballots filled out by hand. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said in a court teleconference Thursday that she will review a version of Halderman’s report that redacts sensitive information and decide whether to make it public by Monday. Totenberg said she was displeased that the report, which has been discussed in public court hearings but remains under seal, became a “political football.” “I’m unhappy with the political treatment of the report,” Totenberg said. “… The entire purpose of having hearings was to maximize transparency but at the same time be mindful of the risks involved of disclosure.”

Full Article: Judge might reveal report on potential voting equipment flaw

Georgia: Atlanta DA granted request for grand jury to probe Trump alleged 2020 election interference | Kevin Johnson/USA Today

Judges granted a Georgia prosecutor’s request to seat a special grand jury to help criminally investigate former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results during the waning days of his administration. Atlanta-area District Attorney Fani Willis made the request last week, citing the need for additional authority to compel witnesses to testify by subpoena. In a brief order Monday, Fulton County Chief Superior Court Judge Christopher Brasher said a majority of local judges agreed to authorize the panel for  a year’s term beginning May 2. “The special purpose grand jury shall be authorized to investigate any and all facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to alleged violations of the laws of the State of Georgia, as set forth in the request of the District Attorney … ” the order stated. Willis has said that her office had “received information indicating a reasonable probability” that the 2020 election was “subject to possible criminal disruptions.” “As a result, our office has opened an investigation into any coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections in this state,” Willis said in a formal request for the panel.

Full Article: Grand jury to probe Trump efforts to overturn 2020 Georgia election

Texas man charged with threatening election, government officials in Georgia | Matt Zapotosky/The Washington Post

A Texas man was arrested Friday and charged with threatening election and other government officials in Georgia, in the first case brought by a Justice Department task force formed to combat such threats, authorities said. In an indictment, federal prosecutors alleged that Chad Christopher Stark, 54, posted a message on Craigslist on Jan. 5, 2021, saying it was “time to kill” an official, whose name is not included in the court documents. “Georgia Patriots it’s time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. It’s time to invoke our Second Amendment right it’s time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges,” Stark wrote, according to the indictment. Georgia officials, in particular, were targeted by hostile messages after they refused to back President Donald Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud. Trump called Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) the “enemy of the people” after the election went against him, and he urged Raffensperger in a phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat.

Full Article: Chad Christopher Stark charged with threatening Georgia election officials – The Washington Post

Judge weighs release of report alleging flaw in Georgia voting system | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge held off Monday on releasing more information from a sealed report alleging that someone who gained access to Georgia’s voting computers could flip votes. Before deciding whether to make portions of the report public, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg asked for proposals from Georgia election officials and plaintiffs suing over election security. “I want people to understand the general concerns … without giving anyone a road map to hacking or intruding on the system or manipulating it,” Totenberg said during a court hearing. There’s no indication that Georgia’s election computers manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems were hacked in the 2020 election, but the lawsuit alleges that the touchscreens are a risk in future elections. Totenberg said she hoped to move quickly to share information without undermining election security. She asked attorneys to submit proposals by Wednesday. One option discussed in court would allow disclosure of the report to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that wrote a letter to the judge Jan. 21 informing her that potential vulnerabilities could be disclosed and mitigated. Meanwhile, a version of the report could also be prepared for public consumption. Both Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and election security advocates called last week for the report to be released following an article about it by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Full Article: Judge weighs release of report alleging flaw in Georgia voting system

Georgia: Fulton County DA requests special grand jury for Trump election probe | Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is requesting a special grand jury to aid in her investigation of former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. In a Thursday letter to Christopher S. Brasher, chief judge of Fulton County’s Superior Court, Willis said the move was needed because a “significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.” She cited comments Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made during an October 2021 interview with NBC News, in which he said “if (Willis) wants to interview me, there’s a process for that.” So-called special purpose grand juries are rarely used in Georgia. But they could be a valuable tool for Willis as she takes the extraordinary step of investigating the conduct of a president while he was in office, legal experts say. “I think it makes sense,” said Melissa Redmon, a former Fulton County deputy DA who’s now an assistant clinical professor at the University of Georgia’s law school. “Having a jury that’s already familiar with the investigation just saves everyone a lot of time.”

Full Article: Fulton DA in Georgia requests special grand jury for Trump election probe

Georgia buys new voter registration system after long lines in 2020 | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia is replacing a laggy statewide voter registration system that caused colossal lines during early voting in the 2020 election. The new technology could prevent similar waits in this year’s races for governor and the U.S. Senate. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday that the state will partner with Salesforce, a San Francisco-based software company, to build a system that will store registration records for Georgia’s 7.7 million voters, check in early voters and process absentee ballot information. The new system, nicknamed GaRVIS for the Georgia Registered Voter Information System, will take the place of the state’s ElectioNet technology that buckled under the weight of high turnout and unprecedented absentee ballot adoption in October 2020. Wait times exceeded eight hours at the start of early voting before election officials and the state’s prior vendor, Louisiana-based Civix, added capacity to the system so it could handle the load. Election Day went more smoothly, with wait times averaging less than three minutes.

Full Article: Georgia installs voter registration system to prevent long lines

Georgia: Fox News, others seek access to report on voting machines | Kate Brumback/Associated Press

In defending itself against a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, Fox News is seeking access to an expert report filed under seal in a separate Georgia lawsuit that the author says details vulnerabilities in the company’s touchscreen voting machines. Election security expert J. Alex Halderman spent 12 weeks examining the voting machines used in Georgia and more than a dozen other states and said he identified “multiple severe security flaws” in the machines that would allow attackers to install malicious software. His report was filed in federal court in Atlanta in July in support of a long-running lawsuit filed by election security advocates and voters who want Georgia to scrap the electronic voting machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots. Dominion in March filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in Delaware, where both companies are incorporated, arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election. A judge last month rejected Fox’s motion to dismiss the suit. The lawsuit cites Halderman, saying he “told Fox explicitly, ‘There is absolutely no evidence, none, that Dominion Voting Machines changed any votes in this election.’”

Full Article: Fox News, others seek access to report on voting machines | AP News

Georgia voting law wasn’t enough for Republican legislators | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In the aftermath of Georgia’s 2021 election changes, a fresh batch of Republican-backed bills could go even further in the upcoming legislative session. The election-year proposals would eliminate all remaining ballot drop boxes, discard the state’s recently purchased voting touchscreen machines, give the GBI authority to investigate voting fraud and create a constitutional amendment to prevent any future possibility that noncitizens could be allowed to vote. The tide of voting bills arrives as GOP legislators push beyond last year’s election overhaul following incumbent Republican Donald Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. The sweeping law limited absentee voting drop boxes to early voting sites, required additional ID for absentee voting, allowed state takeovers of county elections and made many other changes. Voting rights groups warn that Republican legislators are seeking to limit voting access as a way to please constituents who believe false allegations that the 2020 election was stolen because Trump said it was.

 

Full Article: More Georgia election rules planned by Republican-led General Assembly

Georgia county might close voting precincts and open one large site | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A replacement elections board is planning to close all seven polling places in Lincoln County north of Augusta, requiring in-person voters to report to one centralized location. The poll closures would reduce voting access for rural residents who would have to drive 15 miles or more to cast a ballot in a county with no public transportation options, leading to opposition from voting rights advocates. The plan is moving forward after a state law passed this year abolished the previous county elections board and gave a majority of appointments to the Republican County Commission. Lincoln is one of six counties where the Republican-controlled Georgia General Assembly reorganized local election boards. “This is about the powerful flexing their muscles and saying, ‘We can do whatever we want to do, and who’s going to stop us?’ ” said the Rev. Denise Freeman, who is organizing Lincoln voters to oppose the poll closures. “In Lincoln County, it’s always been about power and control.” The county’s elections director, Lilvender Bolton, said a central voting center near the city of Lincolnton would give voters a single site for both early and election day voting, and it would provide more space than small, little-used precincts.

Full Article: Georgia county might close voting precincts and open one large site

Georgia: Lincoln County attempts to eliminate six of seven polling places | Susan McCord/Augusta Chronicle

Lincoln County is trying to close all but one polling place for next year’s elections, a move opposed by voting and civil rights groups. Relocating voters from the county’s seven precincts to a single location will make voting “easier and more accessible” and eliminate the need to transport voting equipment and staff the remaining sites, according to a news release. Community members disagreed. “Lincoln County is a very rural county. Some people live as far as 23 miles from the city of Lincolnton,” said Denise Freeman, an activist and former Lincoln County school board member. “This is not about convenience for the citizens. This is about control. This is about the good old boys wanting to do what they’ve always done, which is power and control.” The move was made possible after the Georgia General Assembly passed legislation earlier this year disbanding the Lincoln County Board of Elections. The chief sponsor of Senate bills 282 and 283 was Sen. Lee Anderson, R-Grovetown, whose district includes Lincoln County. The newly-appointed board agreed to move forward with the “consolidation” plan and was expected to vote on it last week, but appeared to lack a quorum, several said. Multiple public interest groups including the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Common Cause Georgia, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Augusta’s Interfaith Coalition are taking a stand against the effort.

Full Article: Lincoln County attempts to eliminate six of seven polling places

Georgia: Quest for ballot inspection renewed by candidate Perdue | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Republican candidate for Georgia governor David Perdue filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to inspect absentee ballots in Fulton County, repeating some of the same unproven allegations as in a lawsuit dismissed two months ago. Perdue’s complaint, filed four days after he launched his campaign, revives a series of failed lawsuits by supporters of former President Donald Trump searching for fraud in last year’s election. Perdue has put false claims of election fraud at the center of his campaign against incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The former U.S. senator said he wouldn’t have certified the election results and wanted a special legislative session to delve into conspiracy theories about the outcome. State election officials have said there’s no indication of fraud after three ballot counts and multiple investigations. Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump by about 12,000 votes in Georgia. Perdue’s lawsuit echoes a case that also sought to inspect about 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County. Digital images of the ballots were made public earlier this year, but the plaintiffs want to review the originals.

Full Article: Quest for ballot inspection in Georgia renewed by candidate Perdue

Georgia lawsuit looks to ban election machines over use of QR codes | Justin Gray/WSB

Critics of Georgia’s elections were back in court Wednesday in Fulton County trying to ban the use of the voting machines used at every Georgia polling place. Wednesday’s hearing was not about overturning the 2020 election. Instead, the plaintiffs were trying to block the continued use of the $100 million in voting machines Georgia uses at every polling place in the state. A seemingly skeptical judge Kimberly Esmond Adams presided over the virtual court hearing. The plaintiffs claim counting ballots by QR codes is against Georgia law. “Doesn’t your argument totally ignore the evidence?” Adams asked the plaintiffs at one point. “The heart of the lawsuit is that the vote is acclimated out of the QR code, and the voter cannot verify that,” Garland Favorito with Voterga.org said. “You’re suggesting that there would be some kind of intricate system that would reflect one set of votes but record something entirely different?” “Well, there may, be I don’t know. I can’t verify that,” an attorney for Voterga.org said.

Full Article: Lawsuit looks to ban election machines over use of QR codes – WSB-TV Channel 2 – Atlanta

Inside Trump’s campaign to demonize two Georgia election workers | Jason Szep and Linda So/Reuters

As Donald Trump’s campaign sought to overturn his shocking loss of the state of Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, it hatched a conspiracy theory. At its center were two masterminds: a clerical worker in a county election office, and her mom, who had taken a temporary job to help count ballots. The alleged plot: Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and mother Ruby Freeman cheated Trump by pulling fake ballots from suitcases hidden under tables at a ballot-counting center. In early December, the campaign began raining down allegations on the two Black women. Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, falsely claimed that video footage showed the women engaging in “surreptitious illegal activity” and acting suspiciously, like drug dealers “passing out dope.” In early January, Trump himself singled out Freeman, by name, 18 times in a now-famous call in which he pressed Georgia officials to alter the state’s results. He called the 62-year-old temp worker a “professional vote scammer,” a “hustler” and a “known political operative” who “stuffed the ballot boxes.” Freeman made a series of 911 emergency calls in the days after she was publicly identified in early December by the president’s camp. In a Dec. 4 call, she told the dispatcher she’d gotten a flood of “threats and phone calls and racial slurs,” adding: “It’s scary because they’re saying stuff like, ‘We’re coming to get you. We are coming to get you.’” Two days later, a panicked Freeman called 911 again, after hearing loud banging on her door just before 10 p.m. Strangers had come the night before, too. She begged the dispatcher for assistance. “Lord Jesus, where’s the police?” she asked, according to the recording, obtained by Reuters in a records request. “I don’t know who keeps coming to my door.” “Please help me.”

Full Article: Inside Trump’s campaign to demonize two Georgia election workers

Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards | James Oliphant and Nathan Layne/Reuters

Protesters filled the meeting room of the Spalding County Board of Elections in October, upset that the board had disallowed early voting on Sundays for the Nov. 2 municipal election. A year ago, Sunday voting had been instrumental in boosting turnout of Black voters. But this was an entirely different five-member board than had overseen the last election. The Democratic majority of three Black women was gone. So was the Black elections supervisor. Now a faction of three white Republicans controlled the board – thanks to a bill passed by the Republican-led Georgia legislature earlier this year. The Spalding board’s new chairman has endorsed former president Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims on social media. The panel in Spalding, a rural patch south of Atlanta, is one of six county boards that Republicans have quietly reorganized in recent months through similar county-specific state legislation. The changes expanded the party’s power over choosing members of local election boards ahead of the crucial midterm Congressional elections in November 2022. The unusual rash of restructurings follows the state’s passage of Senate Bill 202, which restricted ballot access statewide and allowed the Republican-controlled State Election Board to assume control of county boards it deems underperforming. The board immediately launched a performance review of the Democratic-leaning Fulton County board, which oversees part of Atlanta. The Georgia restructurings are part of a national Republican effort to expand control over election administration in the wake of Trump’s false voter-fraud claims. Republican-led states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona have enacted new curbs on voter access this year. Backers of Trump’s false stolen-election claims are running campaigns for secretary of state – the top election official – in battleground states. And some Republicans in Wisconsin are seeking to eliminate the state’s bipartisan election commission and threatening its members with prosecution.

Full Article: Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards | Reuters

Editorial: Trump’s rage at Georgia Republicans should unsettle us all | Greg Sargent/The Washington Post

Earlier this year, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the most nationally scrutinized “election integrity” bill in the country. The Republican governor plainly hoped this would atone for the sin of being insufficiently corrupt on Donald Trump’s behalf, by insulating him from Trump’s attacks on his refusal to help overturn the 2020 election. In this apparent calculus, while Kemp wouldn’t destroy his reputation by engaging in full-blown corruption to help overturn U.S. democracy and keep Trump in power illegitimately, at least he’d be seen championing one of the worst voter suppression bills in memory. That would count for something, right? Oddly enough, this doesn’t appear to have had its desired effect. CNN reports that Kemp is now facing the prospect of a serious primary challenge from David Perdue, the businessman and former senator. He very well may have Trump’s backing, and Republicans in the state say Kemp could lose if it happens. In much of our discourse, Trump-backed GOP primary challenges to sitting Republicans tend to be cast mainly as retaliation for personal disloyalty to the former president. There’s something to that, but the full truth appears to be darker. What this really suggests is that large swaths of Republican voters appear to want to elect people to office who would have been willing to overturn the election on Trump’s behalf, and will be willing to overturn a loss in the future.

Full Article: Opinion | Trump’s rage at Gov. Brian Kemp over the 2020 election should unsettle us all – The Washington Post

Georgia Grand Jury Looms in Trump Election Interference Investigation | Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset/The New York Times

As the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot fights to extract testimony and documents from Donald J. Trump’s White House, an Atlanta district attorney is moving toward convening a special grand jury in her criminal investigation of election interference by the former president and his allies, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deliberations. The prosecutor, Fani Willis of Fulton County, opened her inquiry in February and her office has been consulting with the House committee, whose evidence could be of considerable value to her investigation. But her progress has been slowed in part by the delays in the panel’s fact gathering. By convening a grand jury dedicated solely to the allegations of election tampering, Ms. Willis, a Democrat, would be indicating that her own investigation is ramping up. Her inquiry is seen by legal experts as potentially perilous for the former president, given the myriad interactions he and his allies had with Georgia officials, most notably Mr. Trump’s January call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, urging him to “find 11,780 votes” — enough to reverse the state’s election result. The Georgia case is one of two active criminal investigations known to touch on the former president and his circle; the other is the examination of his financial dealings by the Manhattan district attorney.

Full Article: In Trump Election Interference Investigation, Grand Jury Looms – The New York Times

Georgia: Trump call to ‘find’ votes was threat to my safety, elections official says | Martin Pengelly/The Guardian

The Georgia Republican responsible for running elections considered an infamous call in which Donald Trump told him to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state a “threat” to his safety and that of his family. Biden’s victory in Georgia was a narrow but vital part of his national win. No Democratic presidential candidate had taken the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. Trump called Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, nearly two months after election day, on Saturday 2 January. Telling him “it’s pretty clear we won”, the then president said: “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have [to get]” to surpass Biden’s total. Raffensperger, a conservative who supported Trump, resisted the president’s demands. That prompted Trump to suggest the refusal to expose mass voter fraud in Georgia – on which Trump insisted but which did not exist, as in all other states – could be a “criminal offense”. “That’s a big risk to you,” Trump said. “That’s a big risk.”

Full Article: Trump call to ‘find’ votes was threat to my safety, Georgia elections official says | Donald Trump | The Guardian