Voters wait in line at a precinct in Cobb County on May 18, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Absentee ballots can be opened a week earlier than usual ahead of elections in Georgia following emergency steps the State Election Board took Monday to help ease a vote-tally bottleneck amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the upcoming Nov. 3 general election.
The board also gave Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office the green light to create an online portal for voters to request absentee ballots via the internet rather than by mail or with a county elections office.
The rule changes come as state and local election officials hustle to improve the voting process in Georgia during the pandemic, which drove voters to cast ballots by mail in historic volumes and spurred hours-long lines at polling places during the primary elections in June.
Instead of two weeks before an election, local ballot-counting officials will be able to start tallying mail-in votes three weeks prior, according to an emergency rule change the state board approved Monday.
The online portal, which the state will run as a centralized system rather than counties running their own portals, is currently in a testing phase and should be ready to roll out before the fall election, Raffensperger’s office said.
To get a ballot, a voter’s name, birth date and state driver’s license or ID card number submitted via the online portal will have to match exactly with that same info as logged in the state voter registration system. A signature match would not be needed.
Combined, the two measures approved at a state board meeting Monday aim to curb problems seen during the June 9 primary in several counties including Fulton County, where local officials struggled to process mail-in ballot requests and handle long lines spurred by distancing due to the virus.
Some counties like Fulton were overwhelmed by the huge number of absentee ballot requests that poured in ahead of the primary, causing delays in the turnaround time for voters to receive ballots. Many Atlanta-area voters never received a mail-in ballot at all due to the processing logjam.
Shortly after, Raffensperger’s office announced it would not send out absentee ballot request forms to all of Georgia’s roughly 7 million registered voters, as was done for the primary. Several counties have elected to send out request forms on their own.
More than 1 million Georgia voters cast absentee ballots during the primary, marking a quantum leap in the number of votes submitted by mail rather than in-person at the polls. State and local officials are anticipating even more mail-in votes for the November election with a presidential contest and two U.S. Senate seats on the Georgia ballot.
ATLANTA – Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff raised $2.9 million last month, the investigative journalist’s campaign reported Tuesday.
About $1 million of that money came during a five-day stretch at the end of July immediately after news coverage of a digital ad run by incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue’s campaign that appeared to alter Ossoff’s image by enlarging his nose.
The Democrat complained the ad was an anti-Semitic attack on Ossoff, who is Jewish. While denying that Ossoff was being targeted and describing the altered image as an accident, the Perdue campaign deleted the ad.
Ossoff’s campaign received 28,000 contributions from first-time donors in July. Thus far, the Democrat has received donations form 150 of Georgia’s 159 counties.
About 97% of the contributions to Ossoff last month were less than $200.
“Jon is building a massive grassroots movement across the Peach State, bringing Georgians from all walks of life together to fight for a government that works for the people,” said Ellen Foster, Ossoff’s campaign manager. “The wind is at our backs here in Georgia, and we’re ready to win in November.”
In a news release, the Ossoff campaign cited two recent polls that show Ossoff and Perdue virtually tied, within the polls’ margin of error.
The Washington, D.C.-based Cook Political Report recently moved the race from “leans Republican” into the “toss-up” column.
ATLANTA – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and 43 of his colleagues around the country are urging Congress to make elderly victims of fraud eligible for federal assistance during the coronavirus pandemic.
The bipartisan group of attorneys general is pushing to include a provision for senior fraud victims in the latest COVID-19 relief package now before lawmakers.
“Scam artists are preying on seniors because they know this group is especially at risk from COVID-19,” Carr said. “Bad actors are targeting seniors as they are isolated at home, separated from families and support networks.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has warned that scammers are offering COVID-19 tests to Medicare recipients in exchange for personal information.
The attorneys general are proposing an amendment to the Victims of Crime Act of 1984 to make elderly victim of fraud eligible for reimbursement through the Crime Victims Fund, which is administered by the states. The bill also calls for depositing penalties and other fines collected from perpetrators of senior fraud into the fund.
The legislation would incentivize states to provide compensation to fraud victims but would not require them to do so.
Congressional Democrats and the White House remain far apart on how to craft a new coronavirus relief package. Disagreements include how much in weekly unemployment benefits to pay unemployed workers through a federal program that expired at the end of last month and whether aid to state and local governments should be included in the legislation.
ATLANTA – Students at more than half of the University System of Georgia’s 26 colleges and universities will return to classes next week with one eye on their studies and another on a widening global pandemic.
As the number of deaths from coronavirus in Georgia surpassed 4,000 last week and the number of confirmed cases passed 200,000, students and teachers worried a decision by the system’s Board of Regents to press ahead with in-person instruction this semester could have grave consequences.
That concern was dramatized Thursday when about four dozen students and teachers held a “die-in” demonstration at the University of Georgia’s main campus in Athens.
“The Board of Regents is a terrible obstacle to the health and safety of the students and faculty of the state,” said Janet Murray, associate dean at the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech, the top signatory to a statement early last month signed by 865 Tech faculty members. “They have not acknowledged we’re in a state that’s having spiking rates of infection.”
A system spokesman said the campuses are taking every precaution to make sure students, faculty and staff can return safely.
“We have been stressing the best public health practices,” said Lance Wallace, associate vice chancellor for communications. “We’re not taking any measures we have not discussed with the Georgia Department of Public Health. We’re letting public health experts guide us. … We can’t eliminate all risk, but we’re working very hard in order to make it as safe as possible.”
The university system shut down in-person instruction in mid-March as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Georgia. Classes continued to be held online throughout the remainder of the spring semester and during the summer.
But by July, system and campus administrators had decided to resume in-person instruction for the fall semester.
“Resuming in-person classes this fall will be a difficult but important task, and it is one we are committed to achieving, as it serves the best interests of our students and the state of Georgia,” 25 of the 26 campus presidents wrote in a joint letter to the Board of Regents. “The campus experience is an essential part of the educational growth that is critical for the overall success of our students.”
“The reason students go to college is to be in an environment, inside and outside of class, where they can have conversations that lead to growth and development,” Wallace added. “You can’t replicate that online.”
But Murray dismissed such arguments as “sentimental nonsense” that is inappropriate while a global pandemic rages. Besides, there’s no way for students to realistically realize the benefits of a campus atmosphere during these difficult times, she said.
“The college experience is going to be very different,” she said. “It has to be. To say it’s better to meet with masks on in a distanced classroom is wrong-headed.”
While administrators at each campus have put together plans to resume in-person classes that fit their individual needs, certain key elements will apply throughout the university system.
“The plan calls for the things we’ve been stressing: wash your hands for 20 seconds, use hand sanitizer, disinfect frequently touched surfaces, stay home if you feel sick, practice social distancing, wear a mask,” Wallace said.
The system has purchased and made available 50,000 COVID-19 test kits, with testing available at all 26 campuses, Wallace said. Also, each campus has a liaison who will work with a local public health office to ensure contact tracing is being carried out, he said.
Students and teachers say they appreciate the system’s decision to impose a mask-wearing mandate on all students, faculty, staff and visitors to the 26 campuses.
But Bhavin Patel, president of the College Democrats of Georgia and a rising sophomore at Kennesaw State University, said there’s been a lack of communication from administrators about specifics of the reopening.
He cited as an example a lack of information on how fraternities and sororities will be affected.
“Many of these organizations are planning to host mass gatherings for recruitment,” Patel said. “Knowing college students, we need to have proper guidelines set in place for Greek life.”
Patel called on the Board of Regents to make attendance at in-person classes optional, so students could take their courses online if they choose.
But Wallace said the benefits of in-person instruction to students are so great it’s worth doing everything possible to make it happen and ensure it can be done safely.
“Our mission as a state agency is to educate,” he said. “We can’t back away from our mandate to perform our mission even though a pandemic makes it harder.”
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rebounded last month after a dismal second quarter, boosted by a delay in the normal income tax filing deadline from mid-April until mid-July.
Tax revenues in July increased by $311.8 million over July of last year – or 17% – the state Department of Revenue reported Friday.
The agency also released figures for all of fiscal 2020, which ended June 30. Including the extra two weeks in July folded into the report because of the delayed filing deadline, the state took in $23.7 billion during a year scarred by the coronavirus pandemic, down just 0.4%, a far better showing than expected.
The state moved the filing deadline back three months to follow the example of the federal government, which gave taxpayers more time because of COVID-19.
Individual income tax revenues last month were up 20.2% over July of last year, reflecting a large jump in payments combined with a big decrease in refunds.
With Georgia’s economy opening back up after being virtually shut down during the early months of the pandemic, net sales tax collections increased 9.6%.
July’s rosy numbers followed three consecutive months of falling tax revenues brought on by the economic impact of COVID-19 on Georgia businesses and their employees.
The General Assembly responded last month to the dismal economic picture of the second quarter with $2.2 billion in spending cuts in a $25.9 billion fiscal 2021 budget that took effect July 1.
While Gov. Brian Kemp indicated this week he will call lawmakers back to the Gold Dome for a special session later this year, the more optimistic revenue picture now emerging might let the governor and legislature avoid additional reductions.
