by Ty Tagami | Oct 9, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The first debate between Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican nominee challenging him, centered on President Donald Trump.
It was also an opportunity for the two opponents to paint each other as dangerous extremists.
The matchup, hosted by Atlanta News First on Thursday night, featured television journalists peppering the two with questions about the economy, healthcare, the Iran war, immigration and other issues.
Unlike Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, who tacked more toward Gov. Brian Kemp than the president in a similar clash with Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms on Tuesday, Collins hewed closely to Trump, defending the president’s policies.
Collins, who represents a district between Atlanta and Augusta, painted Ossoff as a liberal extremist who sides with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and supports transgender athletes while opposing tax cuts.
“He wants to take control of this country with these weird and dangerous ideas with his radical friends,” Collins said.
Ossoff attacked Collins over Collins’ son-in-law, who lives on Collins’ property and has been posting social media content that promotes white supremacy and borrows from Nazi propaganda.
Ossoff also pointed to reports about former Collins congressional staffers’ links to white supremacists, saying Collins had “hired half the Third Reich” and had himself amplified neo-Nazi content online.
When moderator Rick Folbaum asked Collins what he had said to his son-in-law about his online posts and whether Collins would “once and for all denounce white supremacy,” Collins blamed Ossoff’s attacks for a recent death threat against Collins and his son-in-law that led to the arrest of a man in New York.
Then, Collins said he had “condemned racism, antisemitism, hate. I don’t care where the source is and I tell him that too. It’s wrong.”
Ossoff called Collins a “bigot” and said his proximity to white supremacists should disqualify him from office.
“Imagine running for the U.S. Senate while neo-Nazi propaganda is disseminated to an audience of millions from your home,” Ossoff said. “That’s Mike Collins.”
Ossoff started the debate by criticizing Collins for his ties to white nationalists and also for his “pathetic, childlike devotion” to Trump.
Collins tried to tie Ossoff to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan who has been critical of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and, as Collins put it, “hates Israel, loves Iran.”
When Folbaum asked Ossoff whether he believed Israel had committed genocide, Ossoff, who is Jewish and said he had family in Israel, deferred judgment to the International Criminal Court. But he said he believed Israeli forces in Gaza had “violated the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law.”
Ossoff attacked Collins over the war in Iran, blaming rising fuel costs on Trump and on Collins’ support for the president’s policies. Collins said Trump had to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Ossoff also attacked Collins over tariffs and their effect on the cost of living.
Collins said he supported an “America first” policy and that the country had “bowed down” to other countries and their tariffs. American “tariffs now are making it fair,” he said.
Ossoff shot back: “You just heard Mike Collins say the tariffs are working. Go buy groceries.”
The debate also touched on the rising cost of fertilizer, a concern for farmers.
Ossoff blamed the war and tariffs. Collins blamed a reliance on imported fertilizer.
Collins pivoted to Democrats’ role last year in the government shutdown, blaming Ossoff for delaying Hurricane Helene relief funding to farmers. Ossoff said he had helped Georgia farmers by meeting repeatedly with India’s ambassador to get that country to reduce its tariff on pecans.
Collins criticized Ossoff and Democrats on immigration policy, saying his Laken Riley Act — the first bill signed by Trump in his second term — had secured the borders. Ossoff blamed the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation enforcement for the deaths of American citizens.
Collins blamed Democrats for rising healthcare costs. Ossoff blamed Republicans for cutting Medicaid and for allowing enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire, saying that a hospital in Collins’ district had closed its labor and delivery unit partly due to Medicaid cuts. Ossoff said the Congressional Budget Office had warned that service cuts at rural hospitals could result from passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Collins blamed the subsidies. “The only people getting rich on these subsidies are our health insurance carriers out there,” he said.
In a rare instance of agreement, both suggested that more price transparency could help restrain rising healthcare costs.
by Ty Tagami | Oct 7, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — In what was likely to be their only debate before Election Day on Nov. 3, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson attacked each other and sometimes agreed on policy during a live encounter hosted by Atlanta News First Tuesday night.
Billed as a “town hall,” the hourlong matchup (minus commercial breaks) between the gubernatorial candidates featured questions from more than a dozen voters.
A couple of them asked about privacy concerns and Flock cameras. Both candidates said there needs to be more accountability.
Several asked about healthcare, and both Bottoms and Jackson said they would expand Medicaid — Bottoms, fully, in the way that 40 states already have; and Jackson differently, in a way that he said would not lose $4.5 billion, without explaining what that meant or how he would do it.
He had only one minute. That was the format, although occasionally the candidates got extra time to rebut an attack by their opponent.
Jackson went after Bottoms for her handling of public safety when she was mayor of Atlanta and the city was roiled by unrest.
Bottoms targeted Jackson’s leadership of his multibillion-dollar healthcare company, claiming it had raided rural hospitals for their doctors.
Jackson did not rebut that. But he did deny her assertion that he had invested in at least four data center construction companies, although he told Macon news station 13WMAZ in April that his investment in one in Texas made him knowledgeable about the issue.
(He counterattacked, saying Bottoms had approved three data centers as mayor. She said she knew only of one, not hyperscale, at Georgia Tech.)
When a woman who had lost her job due to federal budget cuts asked about restoring funding, Bottoms attacked Jackson for saying during the Republican primary that he would govern like President Donald Trump but “with a Southern tone.” Jackson responded that he would stand up to anyone, “just like” Gov. Brian Kemp.
Jackson did not elaborate, but Kemp resisted Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Bottoms also challenged Jackson about his views on federal intervention in the upcoming election.
After a voter, who happened to be a poll manager, asked about “the divisiveness and concerns around the election process,” Bottoms said she was alarmed by Trump’s rhetoric while Jackson said he thought Kemp had the right approach.
Then, Atlanta News First anchor Rick Folbaum asked a follow-up question that gave an opening to Bottoms. Folbaum asked about a recent request by the Georgia State Election Board for the federal government to declare Georgia’s voting system illegal: “Would you be okay with the Justice Department overseeing and getting involved with Georgia elections?”
Jackson said no, unless Kemp felt it necessary.
Bottoms then asserted Jackson had said the National Guard would be called in during the election. (She also said the State Election Board, which sets the rules for voting, had “gone rogue” and was a “disaster.”)
Jackson denied he had ever suggested the National Guard should intervene, calling Bottoms’ claim “a complete falsehood.”
Folbaum gave Bottoms the last word on that.
“He said that the National Guard would be called in,” Bottoms said. “You all can pull the tape on that. Maybe he’s forgotten that he said it. But he said it.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in August that it had obtained an audio recording from a rally in Columbus. The report said Jackson had talked with an attendee who wanted him to ask Trump for federal troops to monitor the election.
“Well, we’ll get National Guard — Gov. Kemp is going to watch it for us,” Jackson replied.
(The publication embedded the recording in its story and noted that Jackson’s campaign subsequently said Jackson never suggested deploying troops at polling places.)
Despite their differences, the two candidates aligned on several issues. Both would pay teachers more. Both would crack down on insurance companies that inappropriately deny care. Both would cut taxes — Jackson more than Bottoms. And both said retraining workers to give them technical skills was a path to higher pay as costs keep rising.
Jackson illustrated the value of those skills by saying that his plumber drives a Mercedes.
Perhaps owing to the limits on time, both candidates sometimes offered vague policy prescriptions.
To address low pay, Bottoms said she would “strongly encourage” companies to pay more.
To reduce the cost of living, Jackson said “there’s absolutely things that we can do to lower cost,” and then he pivoted to Bottoms’ tenure as mayor, blaming her for inflation.
An update to this story clarified both candidates’ data center claims.
by Ty Tagami | Oct 5, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia’s public school class of 2026 did better in math and a little worse in reading and writing on their SAT tests than students who graduated the year before.
The overall SAT score still rose. The mean score for public-school students in the state was 1031, up two points from last year, according to figures released by the Georgia Department of Education.
The rising score came despite a 4 percentage point increase in the proportion of students taking the test, the agency said, noting that scores often fall when participation rises.
At some point during their high school careers, 59% of public school students from the class of 2026 took the SAT. That is up from 55% of the class of 2025 and 52% of the class of 2024.
The mean score for evidence-based reading and writing for the class of 2026 was 525, and the mean score for math was 506, according to the education department’s numbers released last week.
Although math scores were lower, the mean increased four points from the class of 2025 while the mean for reading and writing fell one point.
by Ty Tagami | Oct 2, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Attentive Georgia voters will notice something different when they go to their polling places on Election Day: pen and paper.
Poll workers will log each voter in electronically, but they will also be recording voters’ names on a backup log using pen and paper.
The retro method is required by a rule adopted in June by the State Election Board, the appointed body that establishes voting procedures in Georgia.
Approved in a 4-0 vote by the five-member Republican-controlled board, with the support of the lone Democrat, the measure was introduced after digital check-in failures during the May primary.
“This will be your paper document to refer back to if there’s an audit, if there’s a forensic audit,” then-board member Janice Johnston said at the meeting, according to the official transcript.
“Now, will it be perfect? No,” said Johnston, who subsequently stepped down from the board. “Someone will forget to write a name down, but it is the paper document to go back to.”
Anne Dover, the election director in Cherokee County, one of the largest counties in Georgia, said this week that she was concerned the requirement could slow the check-in process and result in longer lines.
Dover also worried about errors. Many of her poll workers are retirees in their 70s. She has asked them to write legibly but noted they will be recording hundreds of names on a busy Election Day.
“I feel like they will — whoever they are that are so concerned about this, I think we know who it is — they will get the electronic version of the numbered list, which they always have access to, it comes from the poll books, and they will take that list and try to compare it with the written numbered list. And if they see any discrepancies, we’ll be before the state election board,” said Dover, who has been doing this work for two decades.
“And I can promise you that, especially in these larger counties like ours, there will be mistakes,” she said.
Robert Sinners, a spokesman for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the top election official in Georgia, also said he expects delays.
“This additional step may slow down the check-in process,” he said.
by Ty Tagami | Oct 1, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump administration seeking to obtain personal information about Georgia voters, and the state agency that sets election procedures did not pursue a proposed emergency rule concerning ballot secrecy.
At a special meeting of the State Election Board on Thursday, board members said they opposed a proposal by one member who sought to alter the way ballots are handled by poll workers.
Board member Salleigh Grubbs said she wanted to protect voter secrecy by having poll workers scan the ballots rather than allowing voters to do it themselves, which is the current procedure.
Her rule would have required voters to drop their ballots into secure boxes that poll workers would have emptied into scanners later, after shuffling the order of the ballots.
The proposal was intended to patch a known privacy hole in Georgia’s voting system. The flaw could allow observers armed with artificial intelligence to combine distinct public records in a way that links voters to their ballots.
Voter check-in records and ballot images are public documents, but the link between the two must by law be severed to maintain voter privacy.
A voter activist has contended that new AI tools combined with a preexisting weakness in Georgia’s voting system could empower malefactors to determine how people voted, potentially using that information to coerce voters into selecting preferred candidates.
Voting technology experts have confirmed the flaw exists.
A voter’s identity is supposed to be kept separate from the ballot record, but a seemingly random number remains on the digital record of the ballot.
The number can be decoded to deconstruct the order in which ballots were scanned.
Because records that show when voters checked into their polling places are public — and sequential — the two pieces of the puzzle can theoretically be assembled into a picture that links voters to their ballots, although check-in order does not always correlate with scanning order.
“To keep the published record anonymous, ballot scanners shuffle the electronic records randomly before releasing them. But a security vulnerability disclosed back in 2022 shows the shuffle can be reversed, and some states have not applied the software update that resolves it,” Princeton University researcher Max Springer wrote in a university technology blog in August.
Georgia is among those states, he wrote.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has already taken steps to address the flaw by restricting public access to some pieces of the puzzle.
Technical expert Ben Adida said at Thursday’s virtual meeting that the weakness in Georgia’s voting system is real and serious and needs to be addressed, but he said Raffensperger’s approach was technically good enough for now.
Adida, the executive director of VotingWorks, which makes election equipment, added that updating the voting machine software now to improve the randomization feature would introduce a far greater danger of election chaos.
He said it would be like updating the operating system on an iPhone before a big meeting.
“In my opinion, it’s far too risky to consider,” he said.
But he also acknowledged he was not a legal expert.
And Grubbs, a Republican appointee to the five-member board, contended that the countermeasures by Raffensperger, also a Republican, violate state transparency laws.
“We’re talking about legal issues of compromising constitutional and codified ballot secrecy and a quote unquote mitigation plan that the secretary came up with that is frankly illegal,” Grubbs said.
She also contended that Raffensperger’s solution to protect ballot secrecy was flawed and thus could lead to lawsuits over the constitutionality of the election result.
A local election chief said at the meeting that Grubbs’ proposal was impractical to implement just weeks ahead of the election.
Anne Dover, the election director in Cherokee County, told board members that to shuffle and scan ballots she would have to find and train 126 additional poll workers for Election Day plus 21 for early voting.
There is not enough time or money, she said, noting that her department’s training concludes Friday and that many counties have already finished theirs. Dover worried about inadequately trained poll workers mishandling ballots.
She also worried that voters would be suspicious about the handling of their ballots by anyone but themselves.
“I don’t want y’all to set us up for failure by putting this on us so last minute,” Dover said.
Board members Janelle King and Carolyn Roddy, both GOP appointees, said they opposed Grubbs’ measure.
“I’m not in favor of putting election officials through the wringer,” Roddy said.
Grubbs had asked to place her proposal on the agenda for a meeting Monday, but that did not occur.
The contract for the current voting system is due to expire soon, and state Rep. Victor Anderson, R-Cornelia, co-chairman of a joint House-Senate committee that is selecting the standards for a replacement system, sent Grubbs an email before the meeting advising against her emergency rule.
Anderson questioned whether the election board had the authority to amend the voting procedures as extensively as she proposed. Current law requires the use of scanners to process ballots.
“The proposed rule would continue to utilize scanners, but it substantially changes the process by which in-person ballots reach those scanners,” he wrote.
But Marilyn Marks, the voter activist who collaborated with Grubbs on the proposed rule, told board members that failure to pass it could invite post-election challenges.
“Are we going to do what’s easy and convenient and doesn’t cause too much of a burden, or are we going to do what’s legal?” she asked.
It might be easy to stay the course, said Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance. “It’s not going to be so easy when we start seeing threats to seize the machines that are creating this problem or seeing post-election challenges. Those will get really messy, and it will not be so easy.”
Marks said in a brief interview afterward that she feared the inaction by some board members was intentional.
“The MAGA members want chaos,” she said.
In an unrelated decision that also involved voter privacy, a federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit seeking unredacted voter records in Georgia.
Voter names are public, but the state maintains additional personal information attached to those records, including birth dates, driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers.
The federal government wanted that additional information to match identities against databases that could help determine the eligibility of registered voters, such as by checking their immigration status.
U.S. District Judge Victoria Marie Calvert of the Northern District of Georgia determined that Congress never intended for the federal laws referenced by the Justice Department to preempt states’ voter privacy laws.
