by Ty Tagami | Jul 8, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia’s election board adopted two rules Wednesday aimed at bolstering confidence in the state’s election system.
One of the rules will have no immediate impact since it bans a method of counting votes that will not be used anytime soon. The other could land the State Election Board in court after Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr warned that it was a constitutional overreach.
A third measure that would have banned the use of digital barcodes when tabulating votes failed over concerns that it conflicted with the will of the General Assembly. Lawmakers two years ago adopted a ban on QR codes that was to take effect at the start of this month. But they delayed implementation until 2028 during their recent special session.
Their new law also established a study committee that must recommend a replacement voting system based on hand-marked paper ballots.
The rules adopted by the election board are supported by people who lack confidence in Georgia’s current digital system. Voters tap their selections on a digital screen, and the system then prints out their choices on a sheet of paper that they deliver to a scanner that records the ballot.
The sheet of paper bears the names of their chosen candidates, along with a QR code with data that is supposed to match those selections. The scanners tabulate votes based on the QR code data, leaving skeptics to question whether the printed text and the QR code match.
Had lawmakers not delayed the QR code ban, the Georgia secretary of state’s office was prepared to use optical character recognition technology, or OCR, to tally votes, using the QR codes only as a check.
The first rule to pass the election board Wednesday would prohibit that. The new rule, adopted 3-1, would require that tabulation occur directly from a paper ballot and not an electronic copy.
Critics have pointed out that OCR technology uses digital images of ballots.
“The point is that the vote is contained on the paper ballot, not a copy of the vote,” said board member Salleigh Grubbs, who proposed the rule.
The next rule to pass would require that all vote tabulations and consolidations occur in public.
Results are tabulated at the precinct level. State law mandates election observers be allowed to monitor the process.
The secretary of state’s office receives those numbers and aggregates them into totals for each race.
Grubbs and other critics of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have complained that he has refused to allow most election board members access to his “bunker” on election nights, calling it a violation of the law.
So the second rule would pry open Raffensperger’s doors.
Grubbs was appointed by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican.
Sara Tindall Ghazal, the only Democratic appointee on the board, objected, saying she supported more transparency but that the board lacked authority to give instructions to Raffensperger, who was elected by voters.
Board Chairman John Fervier, appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, pointed to a May 12 letter from Carr that said the election board lacked authority under state law to adopt this rule. He voted with Ghazal against it, saying it could trigger a lawsuit.
It still passed 3-2.
Grubbs lost support from another Republican on another vote.
Janelle King, an appointee of the Republican-controlled state House, said Grubbs’ proposed rule banning the use of barcodes conflicted with the new law delaying the QR code ban.
The proposal to initiate rule-making failed 2-3, as Fervier and King sided with Ghazal against adoption. That left Grubbs with just one ally in new Republican Party appointee Carolyn Roddy, who had supported her other measures.
Grubbs said the rule was needed to give voters confidence that the names printed on their ballots controlled the tabulation results, since voters cannot read the QR codes printed on their ballots.
Fervier said he trusted that the text matched the data in the QR code on his ballots.
“I don’t have the level of skepticism of some others on that,” he said.
The board also voted to begin a public comment process on a rule aimed at enhancing voter privacy. Ballot secrecy is a legal requirement, Grubbs said, but she said the “huge” displays on the current voting machines are subject to prying eyes.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 7, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A 1980s law originally aimed mainly at organized crime can be used in domestic disputes, the Georgia Supreme Court clarified in a ruling involving a legal clash between former spouses.
The decision last week reversed the state Court of Appeals, which had ruled that the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, did not apply to domestic disputes.
Legal experts were not surprised by the high court’s decision but said it preserves a powerful legal tool that could lead to more respect for civil proceedings, since the racketeering law enhances the consequences for playing fast and loose with facts and rules.
“So many of the predicate crimes to satisfy the RICO statute routinely occur in what the Court of Appeals is calling ‘garden variety domestic cases’,” said Tanya Washington, a Georgia State University law professor. “Forgery and fraudulent communications and engaging with other people for them to testify a certain way. All of those sorts of things happen in family law cases.”
If a party is found to have violated some of the 43 categories of offenses listed under the racketeering law, it can lead to severe financial penalties, she said, or even a criminal investigation: “It makes it easier for a prosecutor to pick up the RICO claim and follow the breadcrumbs.”
The unanimous Supreme Court opinion issued June 30 nullified an appellate decision that said it would be “absurd” and “in defiance of common sense and sound reasoning” to apply the RICO Act “to any garden-variety domestic dispute.”
The appeals court had affirmed a decision in a Paulding County Superior Court lawsuit brought by Jennifer Warner against her ex-husband, Jeffrey Espitia, and his fiancée, Krystal Kriewaldt.
Warner invoked the RICO Act after the Cobb County Superior Court ruled against Espitia in a prior lawsuit. He had sued to recover child support from her that he claimed was in arrears.
Their two children lived with him, and he asserted that she had failed to make her monthly $550 payments.
But he admitted in court that he had presented incorrect information and was uncertain about the arrears, saying it was an inadvertent error. He said he had trusted Kriewaldt’s calculations.
The Cobb court determined Espitia’s claims were “substantially frivolous, substantially groundless, and substantially vexatious,” finding that he had gone to court to harass and intimidate his ex-wife.
Armed with that decision, Warner sued in Paulding, invoking the RICO Act.
The Paulding court ruled against her, so she appealed. The appeals court also decided against her, ruling that her underlying claims against her ex-husband were not a matter for the court to consider because the RICO Act did not apply. The appeals court described her lawsuit as “yet another volley in the parties’ long-running domestic dispute,” adding that nothing in the RICO Act suggests it “may be warped so far beyond its original purpose of combating organized crime to apply to a festering domestic feud.”
Warner then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which criticized the appeals court’s opinion on RICO’s applicability, saying the opinion lacked “any meaningful analysis” of Georgia’s racketeering law. The high court ordered the appeals court to consider Warner’s underlying claim that her ex-husband and his fiancée had conspired to file false documents about her child support payments.
Lawmakers clearly intended RICO to target more than organized crime when they updated the law in 1997 to thwart “the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements,” the Supreme Court opinion said.
The opinion also criticized the appellate court for misusing what’s known as the “absurdity” doctrine, a legal analysis that courts can use when the text of a law produces more than one plausible interpretation. If one outcome produces absurd results and another does not, a court should generally side with the latter interpretation, the Supreme Court opinion noted.
But in this case, the opinion said, there was only one plausible interpretation of the text of the law, which prohibits “any person” from conspiring to violate RICO’s provisions.
John Floyd, a former prosecutor and RICO expert who now uses the law mostly in corporate lawsuits for the Atlanta law firm Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, said the Supreme Court needed to send a message to lower courts that the racketeering law applies broadly. Otherwise, he said, the appeals court ruling might have precluded RICO claims in civil cases, including in serious domestic disputes involving threats of murder, kidnapping or other violence.
Floyd helped prosecute Atlanta Public Schools educators for cheating on test scores and then helped Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with her election conspiracy case against President Donald Trump and his associates.
RICO cases are difficult to bring, but the law provides a powerful legal tool against conspirators in criminal and civil cases, he said.
Civil RICO judgments can result in treble damages, attorney fees and injunctions.
Although the financial stakes in this particular domestic dispute might have been modest, Floyd said, “a bad decision in a case like that still cascades down through everything, whether the next case is a $100 case or a $100 million case.”
by Ty Tagami | Jul 6, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A real estate company that gave homeowners money in exchange for a pledge to use its services when they sold their homes decades later has been ordered to pay $1 million to hundreds of Georgians.
MV Realty also was barred from doing business in Georgia, state Attorney General Chris Carr announced Monday.
The Florida-based real estate brokerage enrolled more than 3,300 Georgians, nearly a third of them 60 and older, in a Homeowner Benefit Agreement.
Marketed as a free cash program, participants were given small sums if they agreed to use MV Realty’s services. Carr’s office said in a statement that the homeowners did not realize they were entering a 40-year agreement that would cost them at least 3% of their home value if they sold without using MV Realty as their agent. The charge also applied to property transfers and foreclosures.
“MV Realty took advantage of Georgia homeowners who were already struggling — scamming them out of their equity and putting their life savings at risk,” Carr said in the statement, calling the company’s actions “unconscionable.”
More than 400 Georgians paid MV Realty’s early termination fee, a fee that Carr said was unlawful.
Carr’s office obtained a court order prohibiting MV Realty from doing business in Georgia and requiring the company to pay $1 million in restitution for homeowners.
The company also was ordered to terminate all Memorandums of Homeowner Benefit Agreement in Georgia, which acted like a “cloud” or a lien on property records, interfering with sales, refinancings and reverse mortgages.
The judgment stems from a 2024 lawsuit by Carr’s office.
Affected homeowners will receive restitution through Carr’s office. Anyone entitled to relief who has not received money can contact Carr’s Consumer Protection Division online at consumer.ga.gov or by calling 404-651-8600.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 2, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia Medicaid recipients are likely to find outdated directories for doctors, therapists and other medical providers as the state finds thousands of them have failed to revalidate their eligibility to receive payment for services.
Nearly 8,000 faced suspension starting this month, according to a state report in June that noted more than 60,000 others could follow in coming months.
The revalidation deadlines come as some providers are threatening to voluntarily exit the networks of CareSource and Peach State Health Plan, two of Georgia’s three Medicaid managed care organizations for pediatric services.
The organizations have contracts with the state that give them a fixed amount of money for each Medicaid recipient who enrolls with them. In turn, they must ensure their enrollees receive the medical care required under federal law.
Critics say CareSource and Peach State may be unable to follow through on their end of the bargain
The companies shocked pediatric therapy providers last spring by alerting them of 20% rate cuts. They said they would be cutting reimbursements to 80% of the Medicaid fee schedule. Therapists who reject CareSource’s rate cut were told they would be ejected from the organization’s network. That could eliminate access to care for many Georgia families, especially in rural areas that already have a dearth of providers.
The cost-cutting moves led to a hearing last week by a committee of the Georgia House of Representatives.
The Department of Community Health oversees the managed care organizations’ contracts. Lynnette Rhodes, the agency’s chief health policy officer, did not say at that hearing how many providers had quit CareSource’s network as a result of the rate cuts, but she said the agency was getting reports from the organization about it. She also said the revalidation process would eventually clarify how many remain.
“It will give real clarity in terms of which providers are actually operating and where,” she said. “It’s been quite some time since we have completed that process in Georgia.”
Jesse Weathington, an industry lobbyist, fielded some questions from angry lawmakers. He said the rate cuts were probably a reaction to rapidly rising demand for pediatric therapy, which he said increased by 62% from 2018 to 2025, with demand for autism care rising more like 300%.
Weathington speculated that the growth was driven by increasing awareness and diagnosis.
He said the organizations can renegotiate payment terms with the state each year.
“But we still have a commitment,” he said. “We have to make sure that a member gets seen.” Republicans and Democrats on the panel were not happy with the situation. They started getting calls about the rate cuts from constituents soon after their regular legislative session ended in early April.
“The excuse is ‘well, we didn’t anticipate this growth,'” said Rep. Jesse Petrea, R-Savannah, a member of the House Health Committee. “Well, that’s your job to anticipate the demand and the need for services.”
The committee met on June 23, after lawmakers returned to the Capitol for a special session.
Rhodes told the committee that state Medicaid contractors had authority to unilaterally cut payment rates and terminate providers and that providers knew that when they signed up to be in their networks. She said it was standard practice across the country.
She said it was the duty of managed care organizations to pay for necessary care, even if it meant sending patients out of their networks or paying higher rates on a case-by-case basis.
Providers who spoke at the hearing predicted that the cuts would trigger clinic closures while undermining savings from the rate cuts by triggering higher out-of-network bills.
“Pediatric therapy providers have struggled for a long time. They’re at a breaking point due to this recent notification of rate reductions,” said Margaret Ann Parker, founder of Speech Therapy Services in Southwest Georgia. “If these cuts move forward, clinics will close and we are already seeing this happen.”
Parker said her clinic serves patients from five nearby counties that already lack therapy providers, calling those communities a “therapy desert.”
Federal law requires care organizations to prove their ability to provide all required services when they make deep rate cuts. It then falls on the state to assure compliance.
Roland Behm, a health policy advocate, wrote a memo to lawmakers on the panel that said Georgia had given CareSource about $2.3 billion in Medicaid money in fiscal year 2025. In the memo, which he shared with Capitol Beat News Service, Behm questioned whether the state was getting its money’s worth from contractors for Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids, the state health care program for uninsured children.
“The issue is not the rate cut alone,” he wrote. “The issue is whether Georgia is still buying real access to medically necessary care for its Medicaid and PeachCare enrollees, approximately 70% of whom are under the age of 21.”
Neal Jacobovits, who serves on the board of the Autism Families Alliance, said in a statement to Capitol Beat this week that the rate cuts will cause some families to experience delayed care or even lose access altogether. He said an increase in diagnoses should not reduce access for the families Medicaid is supposed to serve.
“Parents grappling with a new autism diagnosis will be forced to navigate even longer waitlists for care,” he said, “and those in rural communities where services are already limited may be left wondering if they can access any care at all.”
by Ty Tagami | Jul 1, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia public school teachers have mostly found artificial intelligence to be a time-saving tool that makes them better at their jobs, but they say it is more of a burden than a benefit for students.
In a survey this spring that drew responses from 13,679 teachers in 150 of Georgia’s 180 school districts, the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts found widespread use of generative AI among teachers with six to 20 years of experience and in core subjects except math.
Nearly 60% said they offload some work to the technology, with 89% of them reporting positive outcomes. They said it allowed them to create higher-quality instructional materials aligned with state requirements and tailored to student learning styles — and that it saved them time.
“I believe using AI for creating assignments, visual aids, and other instructional material is very beneficial,” one teacher wrote. “I enjoy that I can make material based on what my class needs are.”
They also used AI to write letters to parents, but few said the technology was helpful for tracking student progress, with 62% saying they never used it for grading.
They also were generally dubious about student use of AI.
Use of the technology is rare among elementary school students but increasingly popular as students age, with nearly a third of middle school students and just over half of high school students using it, according to the teachers.
They said students used AI for tutoring, feedback, brainstorming and studying, and that the tool was more popular for students in science and social studies.
Teachers were concerned that students were more likely to cheat by plagiarizing work with AI. They also said they were concerned the technology would reduce student interaction and collaboration, ultimately undermining how much they were learning and their ability to think critically.
Some teachers redesigned assignments to allow for AI use.
But many reported that they had effectively subdued the technology with strategies such as in-class writing, with some using applications or software to check whether their students had used it.
Some rejected it altogether, especially in elementary school, where writing and reading skills are foundational.
One teacher wrote that AI use was unethical. Another wrote that “studies have proven that it lowers intellectual ability!”
The state survey follows other research, such as a national report by the RAND Corporation in September that found just over half of students and teachers in three core subjects were using AI. The study noted few guardrails, with policy guidance lacking, calling the use of the technology in education “a fast-moving, real-time social experiment at scale.”
In Georgia though, about two-thirds of responding teachers said they received guidance or training, with most saying it was effective. However, that support was less likely in districts with higher poverty rates.
