wings wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 1:45 pm Trump is going to liberate Georgia from a post-feudal, structurally racist political regime dedicated to human subjugation?

Or divide and crush the Democrats under a relentless, strategic assault that renders them unable to challenge Republican dominance in federal government for generations?

Damn, analogies suck.

Texas group to ‘preemptively challenge’ 364,541 Georgia voters during Senate runoffs

Hundreds of thousands of registered voters in Georgia are to have their eligibility preemptively challenged by a controversial Texas organization, the group announced on Friday.

“True the Vote announced today it submitted 364,541 Elector Challenges on behalf of Georgia voters representing all 159 counties. An Elector Challenge is a unique feature in Georgia law (GA. CODE ANN. § 21-2-230). It allows a voter to challenge the eligibility of any other voters in his or her county if probable cause exists to show that the challenged voter does not meet the qualifications legally required to cast a ballot,” the group wrote in a press release.

The eyes of the nation have been focused on Georgia, which is hosting two January runoff elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Marc Elias, the lawyer coordinating the defense of voting rights for Democrats, wondered if the move would be denounced by Republicans.

“Voter suppression group, True the Vote is coordinating preemptive challenges of 364,541 voters. This is Trumpism in action. Will any Republican official denounce it?” Elias wondered.

“Either way, this attack on democracy is illegal and will not succeed,” he concluded.

In November, True the Vote was sued by a donor saying he was tricked into donating $2.5 million to the group.

The Rev. Raphael G. Warnock and Jon Ossoff, the Democratic challengers in the Senate runoffs in Georgia, have each raised more than $100 million since October — enormous sums that surpassed their Republican opponents by a significant margin and underscored Democrats’ confidence after recent gains the party has made in the state and their hopes that they might capture the Senate.

The contests have drawn a surge of attention and investment from outside of Georgia, given the stakes, and the campaigning has only intensified in the final weeks before the runoff, which is scheduled for Jan. 5.

Senator David Perdue, one of the Republican incumbents, raised $68 million in the period between Oct. 15 and Dec. 16, according to reports to the Federal Election Commission made public on Thursday. Senator Kelly Loeffler, the other Republican, raised close to $64 million during that period.

Mr. Ossoff, who is running against Mr. Perdue, became the best-funded Senate candidate in history after pulling in $106.7 million, according to the filings, and Mr. Warnock, who is challenging Ms. Loeffler, has raised $103.3 million.

The Democrats’ haul was powered in large part by a flurry of smaller donations collected from across the country, filings show, with nearly half of the funds coming from people who donated less than $200.

For Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler, the smaller donations accounted for less than 30 percent of what they raised.

Mr. Ossoff, who runs a media production company, spent $93.5 million during that period and had $17.4 million in cash on hand, and Mr. Warnock, the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, spent $86.1 million and had $22.7 million in cash on hand. Mr. Perdue spent $57.8 million and had $16 million in cash, and Ms. Loeffler spent $48.6 million and had $21.2 million in cash on hand.

Ms. Loeffler, one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, was the only candidate to give to his or her own campaign, donating $333,200 — far less than the $23 million of her own money she spent on the general election run.

sig230 wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 7:29 am I'm actually a proponent of a National Citizen Registry and ID. The US is about the only developed nation that honestly cannot say how many citizens there are.

highdesert wrote: Sun Dec 27, 2020 9:43 am Little polling and what's out there isn't by the best pollsters and they should a tossup election. It's which side turns out the most votes as wings noted. One candidate is black the other candidate is Jewish, has racism and anti-Semiticism raised its ugly head in this run off?

highdesert wrote: Sun Dec 27, 2020 9:43 am Little polling and what's out there isn't by the best pollsters and they show a tossup election. It's which side turns out the most votes as wings noted. One candidate is black the other candidate is Jewish, has racism and anti-Semiticism raised its ugly head in this run off?

highdesert wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 7:02 pm Thanks K9s, I suspected it was alive and well just repackaged and more subtle. Hope Democratic turnout is high and Republican turn out is low.

Judge blocks voter purge in 2 Georgia counties

A federal judge in Georgia on Monday ordered two counties to reverse a decision removing more than 4,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff elections that will decide control of the U.S. Senate.

The judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner — the sister of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a prominent ally of President-elect Joe Biden who has led voter registration efforts across the state — concluded that the counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations in the two counties.

The bulk of the registrations that the counties sought to rescind, more than 4,000, were in Muscogee County, which Biden won handily in November. An additional 150 were from Ben Hill County, which Trump won by a wide margin.
The suit, brought by national Democratic Party attorney Marc Elias’ group Majority Forward, followed an effort to challenge the lengthy roster of voters simply because their registrations appeared to match U.S. Postal Service change-of address records. Voting officials in the two counties agreed to remove the voters, despite warnings from Democrats that such postal data is not a reliable or conclusive indicator that a voter has given up their local residence.

After Gardner’s ruling, Elias hailed the decision as a “blow to GOP voter suppression.”

“We continue to monitor how other Georgia counties respond to the suppression scheme,” he added. “Where necessary, we will sue and we will win.”

The evidence to challenge the 4,000 registrations in Muscogee County was particularly sparse. The challenge was lodged Dec. 14 by a local voter named Ralph Russell who alleged that he had compared evidence from publicly accessible voter registration databases to prove that these voters had moved out of Georgia.

“I believe that each of the individuals named ... as a result of registering their name and change of address to a location outside of Muscogee County, removed to another state with the intention of making the new state their residence,” Russell told the county board. “Thus, each individual has lost their residence in Muscogee County, and consequently, each individual is ineligible to vote in Muscogee County.”

The Muscogee board met Dec. 16 and backed Russell’s motion 3-1, even though he didn’t attend the meeting and provided no additional evidence to support his challenge. Voters on Russell’s list, per the board, would be required to vote by provisional ballot and present additional evidence of residency to vote.

In Ben Hill County, the board voted 2-1 to support a challenge lodged by Tommy Roberts, a member of the City Council in Fitzgerald, Ga. Roberts similarly relied on change-of-address data, and the board backed him despite evidence that the data could not be verified and would be inadmissible in court.

“Despite this advice from the County Attorney, the Ben Hill Board voted to find that there was probable cause to sustain the challenges,” Gardner noted.

Gardner’s 11-page ruling released Monday night noted that the removals of the voters appeared to violate federal law because they were not given proper notice and because they qualify as the type of systematic voter roll cleaning that is not permitted within 90 days of a federal election.

The Muscogee board filed a motion earlier Monday arguing that Gardner must remove herself from the case based on her relationship with her sister, Abrams.

Lawyers for the board, described Abrams as “a Georgia politician and voting rights activist who was the Democratic candidate in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election and has since engaged in various highly publicized efforts to increase voter registration and turnout for the 2020 general election in Georgia.”

The motion requesting Gardner’s recusal noted that a voter registration group affiliated with Abrams, Fair Fight, filed a suit in another federal court in Georgia last week complaining that a national organization dedicated to targeting voter fraud, True the Vote, is making unjustified challenges to Georgia voters in the lead-up to the Jan. 5 runoffs.

“Abrams’ involvement in the Fair Fight Litigation ... is sufficient to satisfy the standard for mandatory judicial recusal,” the board’s attorneys wrote. “Abrams has a clear interest in the outcome of this proceeding and other similarly situated litigation in Georgia due to her voting advocacy through projects such as Fair Fight and the New Georgia Project.”

Gardner, an appointee of President Barack Obama, noted the recusal request in her ruling granting the restraining order and said she is declining to step aside.

“The Court has reviewed the motion and finds no basis for recusal. An Order detailing the Court’s reasoning is forthcoming,” the judge wrote.

Stiff wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:48 am I think the genie is out of the bottle. Once people in GA realize their vote makes a difference, they’ll continue to turn out in droves.

I actually hope that Trump sticks around and run in 2024. He will be a constant reminder for the rest of us, of what happens if we don’t resist.

Bisbee wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:26 pm

Stiff wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:48 am I think the genie is out of the bottle. Once people in GA realize their vote makes a difference, they’ll continue to turn out in droves.

I actually hope that Trump sticks around and run in 2024. He will be a constant reminder for the rest of us, of what happens if we don’t resist.

How funny. That is a wonderful perspective on Trump staying in politics, Stiff!

I visited a town in central Brazil during Easter celebrations and came upon an amazing festival called Burning Judas. In essence folks parades around the town square with a giant paper-maché effigy of Judas Escariot and then finally set it on fire. In effect, with this festival society is culturally inoculating itself over and over again to prevent the kind of cowardice and betrayal that that biblical story represents.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Judas

Having Trump around would be a similar kind of inoculation against complacency (to racism & hate) and the illusion that democracy works without good people all participating. Trump is indeed our Covid President.

Bisbee wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:26 pm

Stiff wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:48 am I think the genie is out of the bottle. Once people in GA realize their vote makes a difference, they’ll continue to turn out in droves.

I actually hope that Trump sticks around and run in 2024. He will be a constant reminder for the rest of us, of what happens if we don’t resist.

How funny. That is a wonderful perspective on Trump staying in politics, Stiff!

I visited a town in central Brazil during Easter celebrations and came upon an amazing festival called Burning Judas. In essence folks parades around the town square with a giant paper-maché effigy of Judas Escariot and then finally set it on fire. In effect, with this festival society is culturally inoculating itself over and over again to prevent the kind of cowardice and betrayal that that biblical story represents.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Judas

Having Trump around would be a similar kind of inoculation against complacency (to racism & hate) and the illusion that democracy works without good people all participating. Trump is indeed our Covid President.

Sneaky Georgia officials may have 'rigged' runoffs 'so that the two Republicans win'

Attorney Sidney Powell on Tuesday revealed that she believes officials in Georgia may have "rigged" the Senate runoff races in favor of Republicans as part of a plot to undermine her efforts to prove the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump.

During an interview on The Rush Limbaugh Show, Powell was asked if Republicans should bother to vote in the Georgia runoffs.

"My concern is it's not going to matter how the people vote in the Georgia race," the attorney replied. "It obviously didn't matter how they voted nationwide, did it?"

But Limbaugh's guest host, Todd Herman, implored Powell to urge Republicans to vote.


"Well, yes," Powell said. "I would suggest everybody in Georgia turn out on election day and do it again. Vote for the Republican candidates in mass numbers and see what happens."

"And it might be that they've even rigged the system so that the two Republicans win so they can say, 'Oh, see, there's no problem,'" she added.

Stiff wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:01 pm Once he’s out of power, Trump makes for a good boogeyman. He’s the albatross on the neck of every Republican politician. With a little luck, he will also ensure that only the most despicable and sycophantic Repubs win their primaries. They will only win in the reddest states, and they can kiss all the purple states goodbye.