Voters wait in line outside a polling place in Atlanta during the primary election on June 9, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The Democratic Party of Georgia filed a lawsuit Thursday to force Georgia election officials to take steps to cut down long lines at voting precincts ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
The lawsuit comes after several Georgia counties saw long lines at polling places during the primary elections in June and distancing measures mandated to curb health risks from coronavirus continue posing challenges for voter access.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the lawsuit seeks a court order requiring more polling places, better equipment training, extra time to set up precincts, backup voting machines and clearer instructions on when to switch to emergency paper ballots.
The lawsuit lays blame on county and state election officials for the long lines, arguing poll closures and consolidations, equipment issues, lack of training for poll workers and little emergency technical assistance have worsened lines on Election Day.
Hours-long waits in line to cast ballots have the potential to pose not just an inconvenience but a source of disenfranchisement for Georgia voters, making it a legal matter that should be addressed in court, the lawsuit argues.
“Defendants’ systemic failures in election administration have led to long lines that have resulted in significant disenfranchisement of Georgia voters for over a decade now as voters who are forced to wait in line leave and many others never enter the line at all, deterred by the impending wait,” the lawsuit says.
Several Georgia voters joined the lawsuit along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The lawsuit especially singles out Fulton County, which saw huge lines during the primary election in early June, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whose office has placed blame squarely on Fulton and a handful of other county election officials for local precinct problems.
Those problems are poised to be potentially worse for the Nov. 3 general election, when millions of voters are expected to head to polls during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the lawsuit argues. Long lines would pose health risks for elderly Georgians and those with chronic illnesses.
Responding to the lawsuit, Raffensperger’s office noted many duties like adding polling places and voting equipment fall to counties to implement but that the state had provided local officials with data to help make improvements to reduce long lines for the November election.
“We will work around the clock from here through the elections – under the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic – to ensure that all eligible Georgia voters are informed fully about any polling place changes, that we have enough precincts and poll workers and that we do everything possible to minimize lines,” Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said in a prepared statement.
Raffensperger’s office also criticized Democratic state lawmakers for opposing a bill brought in the 2020 legislative session that was originally aimed at reducing the size of any precincts that have long waits.
Democratic lawmakers in the state Senate voted against the initial version of the bill, arguing it was rushed through the session with little scrutiny and could end up curbing voter turnout in areas where precincts had been split.
However, that language was stripped from the bill in June and amended by the Republican-controlled Georgia House Governmental Affairs Committee to prohibit state and county officials from sending out unsolicited absentee ballots, a move Democrats saw as a bid to stifle mail-in voting amid the pandemic.
The bill never came to the House floor for a vote after passing out of committee.
This story has been updated to include additional background on the precinct legislation filed in the 2020 session.
ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia fell by 11,053 last week to 73,931, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Still, the nearly 3.4 million initial claims the state agency has processed since March 21 is more than the labor department handled during the last eight years combined.
The labor agency has taken some heat this week from Democrats in the General Assembly over a backlog of unprocessed claims and benefit payments that has piled up as the number of unemployed Georgians soared during the coronavirus pandemic.
Georgia House Democrats have held news conferences across the state to call attention to the number of unprocessed payments, a problem that has become even more critical since Congress allowed the federal program paying $600 a week to unemployed Americans to expire at the end of last week.
“We are at a critical time for many Georgians,” said Rep. Sandra Scott, D-Rex. “Failure to pass the extended unemployment benefits has left individuals, families, workers and businesses at risk.”
Responding to the criticism Thursday, Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said 92% of all valid claims submitted in the last 19 weeks have been paid. However, more than 135,000 other initial unemployment claims have been filed by Georgians who have not worked in the last 18 months and are, thus, ineligible for unemployment benefits, he said.
“Unemployment insurance is not a guaranteed benefit,” Butler said. “Each claim has to be thoroughly reviewed for eligibility and verified before payments can be issued.
“A claimant may not be granted benefits if they have not worked and earned insured wages in the past 18 months or were fired for cause or quit a job of their own accord. Many times, the employer and employee have different versions of what happened, and that takes even longer to gather information for a complete decision.”
Since March 21, the job sector accounting for the most first-time unemployment claims is accommodation and food services with 802,990 claims. The health care and social assistance job sector is next with 398,353 claims, followed closely by retail trade with 368,039.
More than 122,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia.com for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
Coronavirus has sickened hundreds of thousands people and killed thousands more in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Georgia hospitals and businesses are set to gain new liability protections amid the COVID-19 pandemic through legislation Gov. Brian Kemp signed this week.
A bill Kemp signed into law Wednesday aims to shield businesses and health-care facilities in Georgia from lawsuits brought by people who contract coronavirus in all but the worst negligence or recklessness cases.
The liability protections take effect immediately and will apply for anyone who contracts coronavirus until July 14, 2021.
Business representatives including the Georgia Chamber of Commerce have hailed the measure as a means for a range of enterprises from mom-and-pop shops to sports stadiums to feel assured they will not face crippling litigation due to coronavirus.
But unions and worker advocates have worried employees in the state will be left in the lurch as thousands of Georgia’s front-line and low-wage workers struggle to keep themselves safe from the virus either in the workplace or the courts.
Democratic lawmakers condemned the measure, joining union representatives in calls for more safety considerations to help workers.
Conversely, many Republican lawmakers in the state Senate argued the bill would be too weak to fully protect businesses and hospitals by making “gross negligence” the minimum threshold for bringing a damage claim.
That threshold marked a compromise between health-care professionals, business leaders and trial attorneys struck during the final days of the session. Attorneys on both sides of the issue have described gross negligence as a high legal hurdle but not impossible to meet.
The session, which was paused in March as coronavirus cases soared, also saw passage of a tax credit program for businesses that produce protective gear like masks and hand sanitizer and an extension of expanded state unemployment benefits in place since March.
ATLANTA – Atlanta’s Turner Field is getting a new name.
The baseball stadium the Atlanta Braves used for nearly 20 years converted three years ago to a football stadium for Georgia State University is to be rechristened Center Parc Credit Union Stadium.
The University System of Georgia Board of Regents’ Real Estate and Facilities Committee approved the new name Thursday, the result of a sponsorship agreement with the Atlanta Postal Credit Union.
The agreement calls for the credit union to pay a sponsorship fee of nearly $21.6 million in 15 annual installments.
The credit union will have the right to change the name of the stadium no more than twice during the term of the agreement and will be responsible for all costs associated with any subsequent name changes, including the design, production and installation of new signage and development of new logos.
Turner Field has gone by the name “Georgia State Stadium” since 2017, when the Braves moved into a new stadium in Cobb County and the Georgia State football Panthers began playing their home games in the former Turner Field, which was converted into a 22,000-seat stadium for football.
The full Board of Regents is expected to approve the renaming resolution next week.
ATLANTA – Manufacturers that use the cancer-causing chemical ethylene oxide face new restrictions in Georgia under legislation Gov. Brian Kemp has signed into law.
Senate Bill 426 was among a flurry of 40 bills Kemp signed on Wednesday, the legal deadline for the governor to sign or veto measures the General Assembly passed during this year’s session.
Ethylene oxide is used primarily to sterilize medical equipment, a need that has garnered a great deal of attention during the coronavirus pandemic.
The bill, which was introduced by Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, requires manufacturers that use ethylene oxide to report any waste spills or gas releases to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) within 24 hours. The director of the EPD then must post the information on the agency’s website.
The need for tighter regulation of ethylene oxide became apparent last winter after public concerns were raised over unreported releases of the chemical at a Sterigenics plant in Smyrna and a facility in Covington operated by BD Bard.
The bill passed overwhelmingly in both the state Senate and House of Representatives, with strong support from the Cobb and Newton county legislative delegations.
Also on Wednesday, Kemp signed a constitutional amendment calling for a statewide referendum in November on whether to require that dedicated state funds be spent on their intended purpose.
Committing dedicated state money such as Georgia’s Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste trust funds to their intended use was a longstanding priority of the late state Rep. Jay Powell, R-Camilla, who died unexpectedly last November.
Another measure Kemp signed on the final day for bill signing will reserve a permanent slot in annual state budgets for the funding of freight rail improvements.
Opponents had urged the governor to veto the bill, sponsored by Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, because it could be used to put state funding toward privately owned “short-line” freight railroads, not just those owned by the state.
While the legislation authorizes the Georgia Department of Transportation to fund freight rail projects, this year’s tight state budget doesn’t contain any money for that purpose.
