by Ty Tagami | Oct 2, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers who say they want to address doubts about election security wrapped up a fifth marathon meeting Thursday, hearing about themes repeated from prior such events during their travels across the state.
Some Republicans on the GOP-led study committee expressed skepticism about the security of a multi-state compact created to detect illegal voting. And the lone Democrat questioned the credibility of speakers the Republicans had invited to give evidence.
The hearing, which spanned nearly five hours, featured a half dozen election officials, experts and advocates.
Nearly all of them got at least half an hour to present, before more than two dozen members of the public, some of them local election officials who had driven from far-flung counties, got 90 seconds apiece.
An exchange between Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, and Erik Christensen, an accountant called to testify about how Georgia’s election audit procedures are “a rubber stamp recount,” might have summed up the core of the years-long fight over voting that flared after Donald Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
Christensen acknowledged that he had never managed an election or even worked a poll, leading Draper to ask why someone with his qualifications was “sitting here today talking to us about your opinions.”
She threw in a “with all due respect,” but her line of attack was clearly aimed at his credibility — and by extension the motivations of the Republicans who invited him to speak.
Christensen responded that he knows “how to account for things.”
“But,” said Draper, “you’ve never had a client in election administration.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Christensen shot back. “Numbers are numbers are numbers. In fact, I can’t think of anything on the surface easier than counting votes.”
Then, he added, “Have we turned it into a can of worms? Oh yes.”
That about sums up the situation facing the committee, which will likely promote more election-related legislation next year. That would come after a series of new voting laws in recent years that have not quelled doubts.
The testimony, some of it repeated from prior hearings, went deep into the details of data security, voter roll maintenance, election audits, voter confidence surveys, conflicts of interest, and the history of partisan pivots on election security based on who won and lost.
Republicans pointed to doubting Democrats when Stacey Abrams was defeated by Gov. Brian Kemp in their first gubernatorial matchup, when Kemp, as Secretary of State, oversaw their contest.
Republicans had sharp questions for Shane Hamlin, executive director of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a multistate consortium.
The organization has been collecting and comparing voter data for over a decade, with the goal of detecting people who vote in more than one state.
Hamlin described his nonprofit as bipartisan, and he confronted suspicions that it is, as he put it, a “shadowy” operation.
Georgia lawmakers have been talking about abandoning ERIC since nine states, nearly all of them Republican-dominated, left in 2023. Draper called it a “rash reaction” to Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential loss to Joe Biden, but two Republicans on the committee criticized the organization’s data security and the fact that most of its meetings are held in private.
Georgia and other states send ERIC the personal information of voters, including their dates of birth and their Social Security Numbers.
Hamlin said the data is secured by irreversible encryption and by strict protocols for accessing it. He only has two staffers with the credentials and equipment to pull data from a hosting site somewhere in the Midwest, a location he wouldn’t disclose for security reasons.
Rep. Martin Momtahan, R-Dallas, said the login procedure sounded no more secure than the way he accesses his Gmail.
“It’s not exactly the same,” Hamlin responded.
Rep. Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown, criticized ERIC for holding only one public meeting per year, convening privately the rest of the time. Hamlin responded that ERIC is not subject to open meeting law but does disclose meeting information on its website.
One election watchdog who testified about “systemic irregularities” in voting felt compelled to address the heated politics head on. Mark Davis, president of Data Productions, Inc, introduced himself as someone who is “not an election denier” and is “just trying to solve a problem.”
The people who got 90 seconds apiece at the end mostly expressed confidence in election outcomes, but some shared suspicions that may prove difficult to dislodge absent a full reversion back to hand-marked and hand-counted voting on paper.
No one can lay eyes on a voter’s intent when it is translated into an “unverifiable” electronic ballot through a proprietary system like the one used in Georgia, said one woman. “And there is no way to squeeze trust out of that.”
by Ty Tagami | Oct 1, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — One in eight Georgia jobs are tied to the state’s two ocean ports, and the number of those jobs is growing, according to new research and state data.
The Port of Savannah handled 9% more container units year-over-year and has implemented a new routing process that should increase turnaround time for ships, the Georgia Ports Authority said this week.
And an economic impact study by the University of Georgia’s business school says port activity now supports about 650,000 full- or part-time jobs in Georgia.
That is an increase of 7% from fiscal year 2023.
The ports provide $43 billion in personal income, about 7% of the state total, the UGA report added.
Some areas lagged. The Port of Brunswick saw a 14% year-to-year decline in autos and machinery traffic.
But the Georgia Port Authority’s Board is betting on growth, recently approving $614 million for infrastructure work, with plans to invest $4.5 billion during the next decade.
Gov. Brian Kemp continues to throw his support behind the ports, saying in a statement Tuesday that they are driving the economy and are key to job creation.
by Ty Tagami | Oct 1, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The federal government shut down as of 12:01 a.m., and it could affect the income of about 111,000 Georgia employees.
Many will not get paid, causing an economic loss that could reverberate through communities.
But the Georgia Department of Labor said Friday that the estimated 110,900 federal workers who could be furloughed may be eligible to collect state unemployment benefits.
“Furloughed employees are considered job-attached and are not required to search for work for six weeks,” the agency said.
There is a catch: under a 2019 federal law, the agency notes, furloughed employees will receive back pay when funding is restored. So, any money they collected from the state must be repaid.
The federal government can deduct unemployment benefits from their back pay or reimburse the state directly, so applicants must report gross earnings when requesting payments.
Affected employees can apply online but must show a W2 form or pay stub in person if the federal government fails to report the information to the state, which is common during shutdowns. Applicants can take their documents to any Georgia Dept of Labor Career Center.
by Ty Tagami | Sep 30, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia’s public school class of 2025 scored marginally worse on the SAT than the class before but still outpaced the nation by a wide margin.
The average score of 1029 was a point lower than that scored by the class of 2024 but 33 points higher than the national average, the Georgia Department of Education announced on Tuesday.
Experts warn about comparing state averages because outcomes are tied closely to the number of test takers. States with higher participation generally produce lower average scores because their population of test takers tends to include students with a history of lower academic achievement.
Indeed, Georgia’s average score fell as participation rose to 55%, up 3 percentage points from the class of 2024.
by Ty Tagami | Sep 30, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A Georgia Supreme Court ruling about a zoning dispute over small homes on a small barrier island could have big consequences for a big state.
The high court ruled Tuesday that a local referendum against a McIntosh County zoning ordinance could move forward.
The decision reversed a superior court judge’s order that halted the voter referendum on grounds that it violated the county’s constitutional authority to make and enforce its own development rules.
County commissioners had adopted a new ordinance to allow houses to be built on Sapelo Island that exceeded the previous maximum of 1,400 square feet. Locals from the Gullah-Geechee community on the barrier island opposed the idea and secured enough signatures to hold a referendum to stop it.
The high court’s decision interprets ambiguity in a 1983 re-write of the state constitution that altered the relationship between what’s known as county “home rule” and zoning authority.
The justices wrote that “nothing in the text of the Zoning Provision in any way restricts a county electorate’s authority to seek repeal of a zoning ordinance. The superior court therefore erred” when it halted the referendum, which had been authorized by a local probate judge.
The high court also granted an injunction against enforcement of the new zoning ordinance.
“It means that we now have a chance to get this referendum back on the docket,” said Reginald Hall, a local activist opposed to the ordinance allowing larger houses.
The state Supreme Court had already opened the door two years ago to voter challenges of local government decisions when it decided that voters in Camden County could use a referendum to prevent the purchase of land for a spaceport. The facility would have lobbed commercial rockets over the Cumberland Island National Seashore, prompting concerns about the health of the coastal marsh and about the quality of life for nearby residents.
The high court’s ruling Tuesday involved three cases, one by residents who sought an injunction against the ordinance and two between the county and the probate judge who authorized the referendum.
