Challenging How We Vote

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

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Savannah native and St. Simons resident Brian Harman on Sunday gave the U.S. a step up in America’s “special relationship” with the U.K., winning golf’s 151st Open Championship in Hoylake, England. Harman grew up playing golf at Southbridge Savannah Golf Club and attended Savannah Christian Preparatory School and the University of Georgia.

But for Coastal Georgia, the week wasn’t just notable for what happened on the soaked fairways of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. In Harman’s backyard, voters pressed for changes in the state’s election system. And as schools prepare to open their doors, the crisis of literacy takes center stage. Finally, an ongoing controversy over renaming public landmarks and spaces enters another chapter in Savannah.

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Wanting more

Coastal Georgia voters demanding that the state replace voting machines with paper ballots provided a glimpse of their growing organizational savvy last week.

Members of Georgians for Truth and Women for America First gathered on the St. Simons Island side of the F.J. Torras Causeway on Friday, boasting a sign declaring, “Secure Our Elections.”

Their plan? Get the attention Republican state lawmakers who were traveling to the King and Prince Beach & Golf Resort for the weekend to discuss the next legislative session.

Did it work? Hard to say. There was no immediate word on what Republican lawmakers decided to do about the election system — let alone whether they discussed election-related legislative options, at all.

Entering their latest legislative session earlier this year, GOP lawmakers in Coastal Georgia said no more tweaks to the state’s election system were needed following a spate of election-law changes following the 2020 elections.

Tell that to restive Republicans. While those voters who rallied at the foot of the causeway on Friday are tiny in number, a growing number of rank-and-file Republicans are demanding some sort of legislative intervention into the state’s voting system.

County elections boards are becoming political battlegrounds across the state, as the expulsion of a Chatham County activist, Beth Majeroni, from a county election board meeting earlier this month showed.

The man grassroots Georgia Republicans love to hate on — Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — announced plans last week to delete 191,473 inactive voters from the state’s voting rolls. That measure is unlikely to mollify the GOP’s rank-and-file. They want more.

One demonstrator in St. Simons on Friday, Amy Kremer of Women for America First, urged that a special session of the state assembly be convened to adopt paper-ballot voting before the 2024 elections. Under Georgia law, the governor can call a special session. If the governor refuses, the legislature can convene itself.

At the moment, a special session seems a remote possibility. But with each passing week, doing nothing also seems less and less an option for Republican lawmakers.

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Daunting challenges

The Georgia Literacy Council will hold its first meeting at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro on Aug. 7, a member of the council, Jeanne Seaver, tells Soundings.

In April, Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation establishing the 30-member council. Sen. Billy Hickman, a Republican from Statesboro who sponsored the legislation, called it “a major step forward in improving early literacy rates in our state.”

Seaver, a former Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, head of Moms Against Gambling, and a Chatham County resident, was appointed to the council by Speaker of the House Jon Burns (R-Newington).

Nowhere are the daunting challenges facing the council more evident than in Chatham County, where, as The Current’s Jabari Gibbs reported earlier this month, only 19.8% of students in grades 3 through 8 demonstrated proficiency on reading exams. The council’s meetings are open to the public, Seaver says.

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Renaming Calhoun Square

The Savannah-Chatham Historic Site and Monument Commission is scheduled Thursday to hear public comment and approve a recommendation for a new name for the plaza formerly called Calhoun Square.

Yet whether the municipality can move ahead with renaming the square is uncertain, after a Savannah man, David Tootle, has sued the city, saying it broke Georgia law when it removed John C. Calhoun’s name from the square.

The nation’s 7^th vice president, Calhoun, a South Carolinian, was an ardent defender of slavery.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson says the renaming of the square is well within the city’s rights, following the passage in 2019 of amendments to the state’s law on monuments.

Redesignating landmarks bearing the names of Confederate military and political figures remains controversial at all levels of government.

Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter of Pooler, voted in favor of an amendment to the national defense authorization bill that would have prohibited the use of federal funds to carry out the recommendations of the federal commission for the renaming of military bases and installations bearing the names of Confederate officers — in effect, keeping them. The amendment was defeated 253-177, with 41 Republican House members voting no.

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ICYMI

• The candidate slate for the Sept. 19 special election to fill the Chatham County Commission seat (District 2) held by the late Larry “Gator” Rivers is now set. Appearing on the ballot will be three-term elections board member Malinda Hodge; 2020 Chatham commission candidate Michael J. Hamilton, Sr.; Ni’Aisha Banks; and David Tootle.
• “A military training exercise will take place within and around Chatham County between 23 July and 28 July 2023. Military personnel will conduct training to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements. Military airframes will be used in this exercise. The Chatham County Police Department has worked to ensure minimal impacts on our citizens and their daily routines. Safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and the military personnel involved.” (Chatham County Police Department, tweet, July 24, 2023)
• “Insulin Injustice: Warnock Tells Us About His Fight for Fair Prices for Diabetic Patients” (Capital B, July 19, 2023) “‘Diabetics have to pay as much as $6,000 a year just for insulin,’ [U.S. Sen. Raphael] Warnock said. ‘So getting this [bill] across the finish line … will make a huge difference in the lives of ordinary people, people I know, people I preach to every Sunday. They’re the ones I keep in mind.’”
• “Court challenges to Georgia’s political maps set for federal court trial” (Georgia Recorder, July 18, 2023) “The potential effect of last month’s Supreme Court decision on Georgia’s maps remains to be seen, but if the still-pending challenges here are successful, it could potentially send lawmakers back to the Gold Dome to draw new map.”
• “Kemp’s ‘leadership committee’ remains powerful political tool” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 11, 2023) “Over roughly two years, Kemp has raised more than $50.4 million through the committee, which he continues to maintain even after his second victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams.”
• “Before Jan. 6, Mark Meadows joked about Trump’s election claims” (Washington Post, July 22, 2023) “Mark Meadows joked about the baseless claim that large numbers of votes were fraudulently cast in the names of dead people in the days before the then-White House chief of staff participated in a phone call in which President Donald Trump alleged there were close to 5,000 dead voters in Georgia and urged Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to overturn the 2020 election there.”
• “Male anti-abortion religious leaders mull murder charges for pregnant people at national event” (Georgia Recorder, July 22, 2023) “Regardless of the legislative strategy, the panelists [meeting in Douglasville, Ga.] agreed changing the culture of America to take on a Christian biblical worldview, which will require all pastors to take the same position on abortion as their own. ‘We must see that the church plays that role culturally, to create that social tension. That’s the standard, that’s the ideology,’ [Operation Save America Director Jason] Storms said. ‘But that’s when we have to say, ‘Well, how does that flesh out in the real world?’ It doesn’t always look so pretty when we actually see that applied. How is abortion going to end? I don’t know, maybe it’s going to be a civil war, maybe it’s going to be a whole variety of other means.’”

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