Taking bets on how quickly the appeals come inâŚ
Georgia officials will appeal a judgeâs order for lawmakers to draw new political maps with additional majority-Black districts in certain areas but wonât seek to put the ruling on hold in the meantime, paving the way for a special session later this month.
Interesting choice.
I voted yesterday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/29/youngkin-virginia-elections-voter-rolls/
The appeals court panelâs ruling notes that if the state legislature does not pass a new map by mid-January, the lower court should move ahead to a trial in order to finalize a map in time for the 2024 elections. The panel says the court could give âlimited additional timeâ to lawmakers. Any major delays could risk not having a redistricting plan in place by late May, when the state has said it needs a final map to prepare for elections.
The Politically GA podcast has been doing analysis on the mapsâŚ
The most recent one was about the congressional maps and my rep. Lucy McBath⌠itâs starting to feel like the GOP has it out for herâŚ
And not because of anything specific. The applications just⌠vanished?
Itâs so frustrating because it doesnât have to be that way. When I moved to NJ and applied for a NJ driverâs license, I checked the box for voter registration, and shortly after, I got it in the mail. Then, before the first election after I registered, I got a notice about voting by mail. I did that, and it said that I would then be sent a mail in ballot before every election and I wouldnât have to re-sign up for that or anything. I would just remain in the system to be sent a mail in ballot until I told them otherwise. And they have. Even after I moved to a different township. And there are drop boxes for mail in ballots all over the place. Registering to vote, and voting itself, doesnât have to be hard. And it shouldnât be. And where it is, as in Texas, there is one and only one reason, and itâs in the name of this thread.
Good. But itâs interesting that this happened at the Tim Curry Justice Center. At least justice was served despite it being Tekzass.
In a 125-page opinion, the stateâs highest court affirmed a lower courtâs ruling that the four laws, passed in the wake of Donald Trumpâs 2020 election loss, violate the state constitution. The laws had ended same-day voter registration, removed student ID cards as a permissible form of voter ID, prohibited third parties from returning ballots and barred the distribution of mail-in ballots to voters who would turn 18 by election day.
Under Georgia law, voter challenges must be heard. And remember, Richards says he intends for county boards of elections to use Eagle AI to check those challenges.
That raises a real possibility of county boards fact-checking Eagle AI-generated voter challenges with Eagle AI.
Marisa Pyle of the group All Voting is Local, which supports expanded voter access, said that is a problem.
âItâs an ouroboros of, sort of, disinformation at this point,â Pyle said.
The law is the latest measure from Republican state lawmakers to bolster scrutiny of the voter rolls since the 2020 election when Biden won by just under 12,000 votes. It outlines guidelines for voter challenges â a process through which regular citizens can challenge other votersâ eligibility.
The law says that if a challenger finds a voter is registered to a ânonresidentialâ address, that would be sufficient for election officials to uphold the challenge.
Good news?
Additional good newsâŚ
The lawsuit only named Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to 11% of the stateâs voters. But at least five other populous counties that tend to vote for Democrats also announced election offices would open over the weekend to allow hand return of absentee ballots.
The lawsuit was filed late Friday and cited a section of Georgia law that says ballot drop boxes cannot be open past the end of advance voting, which ended Friday. But state law says voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until the close of polls at 7 p.m. on Election Day. Despite that clear wording, lawyer Alex Kaufman initially claimed in an emergency hearing Saturday that voters arenât allowed to hand-deliver absentee ballots that were mailed to them.
Kaufman then argued that voters should be blocked from hand-delivering their ballots between the close of early in-person voting on Friday and the beginning of Election Day on Tuesday, even though he said it was fine for ballots to arrive by mail during that period. It has long been the practice for Georgia election offices to accept mail ballots over the counter.
[Edit] and video from the emergency hearing:
Judge (after starting up the livestream): âI see two people watching, and a few more are coming in [âŚ] Iâm not gonna ask you to hit the subscribe and like button.â
Good news! Our courts have been smacking this shit down left and rightâŚ
