by Dave Williams | Aug 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Local elections officials recommended a series of changes to state election laws Friday aimed at restoring public trust in the voting process.
“Nothing bothers me more than knowing that the process is not trusted,” Deidre Holden, elections director in Paulding County, told members of a Georgia House study committee formed to evaluate the state’s current election laws and propose improvements.
“When our voters come to cast their vote, they should never leave there with a doubt in their mind that their vote is going to count. They should leave with confidence, and it’s very unfortunate we’re not seeing that.”
Some of the changes Holden and other local election officials testifying at a daylong hearing in Rockmart suggested would alter ballots to create greater transparency, while others ranged from tightening up voter registration requirements to prohibiting rules changes close to Election Day.
Holden said giving voters the ability to register automatically when they apply for a driver’s license – a change the General Assembly made early in the last decade – is failing because it’s adding voters to the rolls who may not be eligible to vote and weren’t intending to register.
“We see more felons registering not knowing they’re registering,” she said. “You see individuals who don’t want to register that get registered. A lot of non-citizens are registering, and it’s producing many duplicate applications.”
But Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, a member of the study committee, said the current “opt-out” provision – which automatically registers voters who apply for a driver’s license unless they specifically decline to register – is having positive results.
“We became one of the most registered states in the country,” she said.
Draper suggested elections officials find ways to make voters more aware that they’re registering to vote when they apply for a driver’s license without getting rid of the opt-out provision.
Holden also recommended returning to a provision in state election law that prohibited the State Election Board (SEB) from changing rules governing elections within 90 days of Election Day. While a Fulton County Superior Court judge invalidated seven rules changes the Republican-controlled SEB made within weeks of last November’s elections, Holden said the uncertainty disrupted local elections offices.
“We spent 2024 in a state of confusion because of what the SEB had implemented,” she said. “We didn’t know if we had trained our poll workers right or whether we were going to have to retrain them.”
Noah Beck, Polk County’s election director, asked committee members to support legislation moving back the deadline for absentee ballot applications by seven hours, from 11:59 p.m. 11 days before Election Day to 5 p.m. He said allowing applications to come into empty election offices after the close of the business day contributes to public mistrust of the process and causes delays in getting absentee ballots out to voters.
“Moving it to 5 p.m. would be better suited not only to the voter but to the administrators,” Beck said. “End-of-the-day processing would allow us to have better fulfillment times and make it where we’re gambling less on the post office.”
Veronica Johnson, elections director in Lee County, suggested lawmakers either eliminate absentee ballot drop boxes or at least adopt additional guardrails surrounding their use. Drop boxes were adopted during the pandemic to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but detractors have questioned the effectiveness of security measures taken to prevent voter fraud connected with drop boxes.
Holden also recommended several more fundamental changes to the voting process, including getting rid of the requirement that candidates win a majority of the vote and allowing those who capture a plurality to be declared the winner.
She said that would reduce the number of expensive runoffs, which tend to draw low voter turnouts. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has advocated doing away with general-election runoffs altogether.
Holden also proposed letting voters cast their ballots anywhere in the county where they are registered rather than having to go to one specific voting location.
But the most far-reaching change discussed Friday could lead to an overhaul of Georgia ballots. The General Assembly passed legislation last year calling for eliminating QR codes from paper ballots, which tend to confuse voters, by July of next year.
Holden said the next logical step would be to get rid of voting machines altogether and switch to hand-marked paper ballots, a change election watchdog groups have long advocated.
“That’s what our voters want,” she said to applause from supporters of hand-marked paper ballots in the audience. “When they fill in that bubble, they know who they voted for.”
The study committee faces a Dec. 1 deadline to deliver recommendations to the full House.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia students posted modest academic gains in most of the tested grades and subjects last school year except in one key area.
English Language Arts scores fell in all but two of the seven grade levels that were given Milestones exams, according to scores released by the Georgia Department of Education Friday.
Fifth and eighth graders posted the biggest drops in English proficiency rates. In fifth grade, 43% scored proficient or better, down 5 percentage points from fifth grade test takers the prior year. Eighth graders also fell 5 points, to 40%.
The gains in the two grades that did not lose ground were not big: 2 percentage points in fourth grade and 1 point in seventh. In both grades, two out of five students scored well enough to be considered proficient in English.
Literacy has become a major focus, with the General Assembly requiring new methods of teaching reading in public schools.
Allison Timberlake, who oversees testing for the state education department, said all kindergarten through third grade teachers have now been re-trained in reading instruction and will be using research-backed methods.
“So that work is really getting started for this coming school year,” she said.
The agency sent literacy coaches to 60 of the lowest-performing elementary schools. There are more than 1,200 elementary schools in the state.
Scores in other subjects were generally flat or rising 1 to 3 points.
In math, every tested grade but one did better than the prior year. The biggest gain — 3 percentage points — was in eighth grade, where 47% scored proficient or better. Third graders fell back 1 percentage point, with 44% scoring at least proficient.
The biggest gain in any subject and grade combination was in high school physical science. The percentage of students who scored at least proficient was up 6 points, reaching 57%.
Overall proficiency rates indicate that most students struggle to master the material.
Fewer than half of test takers scored proficient or better in most subjects and grades. The results are generally worse than before the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, the test for U.S. history, a high school course taken by students who are not in Advanced Placement or other accelerated classes, showed 39% were proficient, the same as the prior year. That result is down 8 percentage points from the 47% who scored proficient in 2019.
by Ty Tagami | Aug 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Chris Carr, Georgia’s attorney general and a candidate for governor, is suing his Republican primary opponent in federal court over a campaign finance issue.
The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Atlanta filed Thursday follows a complaint by Carr against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones that was dismissed by the State Ethics Commission last month.
In the new case and the old, the complaints involve Jones’ use of a “leadership committee” to lend his campaign $10 million.
Jones started his WBJ Leadership Committee under a 2021 state law that allows him to collect unlimited sums due to his role as lieutenant governor.
“Mr. Carr has the right to enjoy the equal protection of the law, especially where, as here, unequal treatment under the law burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to free speech under the First Amendment,” says the lawsuit. The suit, filed by Carr personally and by his campaign, also alleges that Jones’ use of his leadership committee violates the 14th Amendment guarantees of freedom of association and speech.
“While other candidates are bound by strict fundraising caps, Jones is using a separate political entity with no accountability — effectively giving himself a second campaign committee bankrolled by special interests,” Carr’s campaign said.
“Leadership committees were never intended to be unregulated campaign machines,” Carr spokeswoman Julia Mazzone added.
The Jones camp accused Carr of hypocrisy.
“Georgia’s lackluster attorney general defended this law two years ago,” Jones spokeswoman Kendyl Parker said. “Now, he’s running for governor and wants to challenge the same law he once defended. If hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, he’d take gold.”
Last month, the ethics commission dismissed a Carr complaint about Jones’ use of his leadership committee to lend himself $10 million, noting that Jones filed a financial disclosure in 2022 reporting his $12 million net worth but only $700,000 in liquid assets.
The ethics committee responded that the three-year-old financial disclosure report “does not form a factual and legal basis to investigate an alleged false or incorrect filing” about Jones’ recent loan to his campaign.
by Dave Williams | Aug 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Two former correctional officers at Augusta State Medical Prison have been indicted in connection with the death of an inmate in 2020.
Robert Roberson and Marcus Phillips are charged with violating the inmate’s constitutional rights by showing deliberate indifference to a fire in his cell that caused his death.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury this week, alleges that on Oct. 28, 2020, the two officers noticed a smoldering fire in the inmate’s cell.
Rather than putting out the fire, evacuating the inmate from his cell, or calling a fire emergency over the radio, the officers are accused of leaving the inmate in the locked cell for several hours while he slowly died from smoke inhalation.
The indictment further charges Roberson with falsifying a logbook to cover up his misconduct.
The FBI’s Civil Rights Division is prosecuting the case, working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Georgia.
by Dave Williams | Aug 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Five soldiers were shot Wednesday morning at the U.S. Army’s Fort Stewart southwest of Savannah.
Law enforcement officers were dispatched to the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team area at the base shortly before 11 a.m., the Army posted in a news release on X. The alleged shooter, apprehended at 11:35 a.m., was later identified as Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, who was assigned to the combat team.
The five soldiers were treated at the scene initially, then transported to Winn Army Community Hospital for further treatment. Later, two were taken by ambulance 45 minutes to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, the only Level 1 trauma center in the region.
All five were listed in stable condition and were expected to recover, Brig. Gen. John Lubas, the commander at Fort Stewart, told reporters during a mid-afternoon news conference.
“We are keeping the victims, their families, and all those who answer the call to serve in our hearts and prayers, and we ask that Georgians everywhere do the same,” Gov. Brian Kemp wrote on his Facebook site.
Georgia’s two U.S. senators expressed similar sentiments.
“Today’s shooting at Ft. Stewart in Georgia is a horrific act of violence,” said Sen. Jon Ossoff. “My office is in contact with leadership at Ft. Stewart to deliver all support it is within our power to provide.”
“I join all Georgians in praying for the five injured soldiers, their families, and the entire Fort Stewart community after this tragic shooting,” Sen. Raphael Warnock added. “I am grateful to the local and federal law enforcement and first responders who acted to save lives.”
The entire base was placed on lockdown within minutes of the shooting. The lockdown was lifted about an hour later in all areas of the base except the combat team complex.
Lubas praised the quick work of nearby soldiers who tackled Radford when the shooting started and subdued him until law enforcement personnel could take him into custody.
Lubas said the suspect used a personal handgun to make the attacks, not a military weapon. He said investigators are working to determine how he got the gun onto the base.
Radford has no history of serving in combat, Radford said. The suspect does have a recent drunk driving arrest on his record, the commander said.
Authorities are not releasing the names of the victims pending notification of next of kin.
Lubas declined to speculate on a motive for the shootings at this early stage of the investigation.
Fort Stewart is the headquarters of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and is the largest Army base in the eastern United States.
