ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger defended the state’s elections system Friday, one day after President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters accused the secretary of state’s office of mishandling absentee ballots.
With more than 22,600 military and overseas absentee ballots as well as provisional ballots remaining to be counted as of late Friday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had pulled ahead of Trump in Georgia by 4,235 votes. Biden had trailed the president in the Peach State from the time vote counting began after the polls closed on Tuesday night until the wee hours of Friday morning.
Georgia was one of just a handful of states still up for grabs on Friday, with Biden holding narrow leads in most of them.
“The stakes are high and emotions are high on all sides,” Raffensperger, a Republican, said during a news conference. “We will not let that debate distract us from our work. We will get it right.”
After Trump took to the White House podium Thursday night to slam Georgia and other states still counting absentee ballots, Republican members of Georgia’s congressional delegation rushed to back the president. GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler contributed to a defense fund raising money to mount legal challenges alleging fraud in the election.
But Gabriel Sterling, voting systems manager for the secretary of state’s office, said Friday Georgia election officials have not seen any “widespread irregularities” in the counting of votes.
“When margins are this tight, small things can make a difference,” he said. “So, everything is going to have to be investigated to ensure the integrity of this election.”
Raffensperger said the thin margin separating Biden and Trump in Georgia likely will necessitate a recount, which will come after the vote has been audited and certified.
“We’re committed to doing everything we can to maintain trust in our electoral process,” Raffensperger said.
Sterling said the secretary of state’s office is open to investigating any allegations of wrongdoing that can be supported.
“If somebody has a credible complaint and some evidence, they can give our office a call,” he said.
ATLANTA – Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is threatening to carry Georgia, while Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Jon Ossoff likely will force a runoff against Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue.
President Donald Trump’s lead over Biden in the Peach State had shriveled to just 9,426 votes by late Thursday, with 36,331 votes remaining to be counted statewide.
While Perdue held a much larger advantage over Ossoff – more than 100,000 votes – the one-term incumbent’s share of the vote had fallen to 49.95%, just below the 50%-plus-one margin required under Georgia law to avoid a runoff.
Trump held a huge lead of 372,000 votes over Biden in Georgia at midnight on Election Night. But that margin melted away on Wednesday and Thursday as elections workers continued counting mail-in ballots.
In Georgia and across the country, mail-in voting has been dominated by Democrats wary of waiting in long Election Day lines in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Also, Trump repeatedly cast aspersions at the integrity of the mail-in voting process during campaign rallies and urged his supporters to show up at the polls and cast their ballots in person.
A Georgia judge ruled against a lawsuit claiming elections officials in Chatham County mishandled 53 mail-in ballots.
Officials in Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office stood by the integrity of the elections process across Georgia.
“We have 159 dedicated election supervisors and their staffs working to get this right,” Gabriel Sterling, voting systems manager in the secretary of state’s office, said during a mid-afternoon news conference. “They’re going to get it right. We’re going to have an audit to prove they got it right.”
With Georgia among just a handful of states still in play, its 16 electoral votes are critical to either presidential candidate’s chances.
A Biden victory in Georgia would represent a huge upset. The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state was Bill Clinton in 1992. Georgia has been reliably Republican in statewide contests since the early 2000s.
Meanwhile, Democratic mail-in votes also reduced Perdue’s lead over Ossoff to the point the GOP incumbent likely will face the Democrat again in a runoff. That would put both of Georgia’s Senate seats up for grabs on Jan. 5, .with Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler defending her seat against Democrat Raphael Warnock.
That would put Georgia in the national spotlight for weeks after this week’s votes are counted. The results in Georgia could determine whether Republicans keep their majority in the Senate or Democrats wrest control.
The tightening of the presidential and Senate contests in Georgia also could result in a runoff for one or even two open seats on the state Public Service Commission (PSC).
By late Thursday, Republican Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald’s share of the statewide vote against Democrat Daniel Blackman was down to 50.11%. GOP Commissioner Jason Shaw was leading Democrat Robert Bryant with 50.32% of the vote, making it less likely but still possible a runoff might be needed to decide that race.
ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia continued to decline last week, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
More than 37,000 Georgians filed claims last week, down 6,442 from the week before.
The agency paid out more than $170 million in benefits during the week, bringing to $15.5 billion the total benefits paid in Georgia since the coronavirus pandemic began shutting down businesses last March, more than during the last 28 years combined.
The labor department also reported more than 25,000 Georgians are about to hit the 39-week limit for benefits provided through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, established as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act Congress passed in March.
The program provides unemployment benefits to Americans who are not usually eligible for regular state benefits, including gig workers, independent contractors, employees of churches and non-profits, or those with limited work history who don’t qualify for regular state unemployment benefits.
“The PUA program issued benefits to many in the self-employed community allowing these individuals to recoup a portion of the wages lost when their businesses had to shut down due to the pandemic,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said.
“Federal programs, like PUA and other disaster-related programs, are intended to temporarily provide support for those displaced during a crisis. Never before have we seen a federal program rolled out on a nationwide scale within such a demanding time frame to so many people.”
The job sector accounting for the most initial unemployment claims last week was accommodation and food services, with 7,869 claims. The administrative and support services sector was next with 4,194 claims, followed by health care and social assistance with 3,490.
More than 168,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia for Georgians to access, more than double last April’s listing of 73,000 jobs. The labor department offers online resources for finding careers, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
ATLANTA – About 60,000 ballots remained to be counted in Georgia Thursday morning, two days after voters went to the polls, an official with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office said.
That’s down from about 200,000 ballots that were still uncounted the day before.
“Fast is great, and we appreciate fast,” Gabriel Sterling, the voting system manager for the secretary of state’s office, told reporters during a news conference at the Georgia Capitol. “We more appreciate accuracy.”
Since the votes now being counted are mail-in ballots, President Donald Trump’s once healthy lead over Democratic challenger Joe Biden in Georgia is continuing to shrink. With the Republican president urging his supporters to vote in-person during the weeks leading up to Election Day, most of the absentee ballots are coming from Democrats.
As the Trump-Biden contest in Georgia continues to tighten, Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s lead over Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff also keeps shrinking. Perdue’s share of the vote was down to 50.03% on Thursday morning, barely the 50%-plus-one margin needed to avoid a January runoff.
Sterling said the time it’s taking to count Georgia’s absentee ballots is due in part to the state’s elections system, which relies on county elections offices.“
Some are more resourced than others,” he said.Sterling also noted that Georgia is using paper ballots for the first time in 20 years. Like other states, Georgia elections offices also are grappling with an unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots from voters who were wary of waiting in long Election Day lines during the midst of a global pandemic.
Chatham County accounts for 17,157 of the ballots remaining to be counted, followed by Fulton County with 11,200 still out. Clayton County is next with 7,408 uncounted ballots, followed by Gwinnett County with about 7,300 still out.
With the margins in Georgia so close, Sterling said provisional ballots and absentee ballots sent in by military personnel from overseas could factor into the results.
“We’re going to make sure every lawful ballot is counted,” he said.As of Thursday morning, Trump held a razor-thin lead over Biden in Georgia, 49.57% to 49.20%. With results in just a handful of states still uncertain, capturing Georgia’s 16 electoral votes would go a long way toward putting either candidate over the top.
Perdue was still leading Ossoff by more than two points – 50.03% to 47.66%. But due to Georgia’s runoff requirements, Perdue can’t afford much more slippage if he wants to win a second Senate term outright.
“If overtime is required when all of the votes have been counted, we’re ready, and we will win,” the Perdue campaign said Thursday. “It is clear that more Georgians believe that David Perdue’s positive vision for the future direction of our country is better than [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer’s radical socialist agenda.”
Ossoff predicted there will be runoff to decide the contest.
“When a runoff is called and held in January, Georgians are going to send Jon to the Senate to defend their health care and put the interests of working families and small businesses ahead of corporate lobbyists,” said Ellen Foster, Ossoff’s campaign manager. “Georgians are sick and tired of the endless failure, incompetence and corruption of Senator Perdue and Donald Trump.”
Sterling said he hopes ballot counting in Georgia will be completed by the end of Thursday.
The Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – While high-profile races in Georgia remained uncertain on the morning after Election Day, voters have overwhelmingly approved two constitutional amendments and one statute on this year’s statewide ballot.
A constitutional change requiring that state fees and taxes collected for a specific purpose are spent as intended passed with 81.4% of the vote.
A second constitutional amendment prohibiting the state and local governments from using the legal doctrine of “sovereign immunity” to avoid citizen lawsuits won approval from 74.3% of the voters.
Georgia voters also authorized a tax exemption for property owned by charitable organizations for the purpose of building or repairing single-family homes. House Bill 344 was endorsed with 73% of the vote.
The General Assembly put Amendment 1 on the ballot in honor of the late state Rep. Jay Powell, R-Camilla, a longtime leader of the effort to ensure that fees collected for Georgia’s Hazardous Waste and Solid Waste Trust funds are spent cleaning up hazardous waste sites and tire dumps.
Georgia governors and legislatures have a history of redirecting the revenue those dedicated fees collect into the general fund during tight economic times.
The sovereign immunity amendment stems from a 2014 Georgia Supreme Court decision that essentially granted the state blanket immunity from citizen lawsuits in a case brought by the Center for a Sustainable Coast. The group had filed suit alleging the state Department of Natural Resources was illegally allowing alterations to private property in fragile coastal wetland areas protected by state law.
To discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits, the amendment prohibits plaintiffs from recovering monetary damages or attorney fees.
Supporters pushed House Bill 244 as a way to help grow the stock of affordable housing in Georgia, particularly in small cities and rural communities.
