Tuesday, August 15, 2023
In this week’s Soundings, we look closely at burgeoning efforts across Coastal Georgia to replace the state’s voting system before the 2024 elections, starting in Richmond Hill and moving to Chatham County Election Board headquarters.
‘The system is broken, and we can’t fix it’
Georgia’s conservative election guru, Garland Favorito, swung through Coastal Georgia this weekend, giving speeches to Republican groups in Jesup and Richmond Hill.
Favorito’s message to Bryan County Republicans at a meeting room at Ft. McAlister was stark: Georgia’s electronic voting system is irretrievably inadequate and insecure and must be scrapped in favor of hand-counted, paper ballots, The Current’s Craig Nelson reports.
Favorito is one of a large cast of election integrity advocates barnstorming the state to urge that a special session of the Georgia General Assembly be convened to legislate the switch. They’re also urging each of the state’s 159 counties to take matters in their own hands and carry out the change.
Speaking of paper ballots . . .
More than 50 Chatham County residents showed up yesterday at the monthly meeting of the county’s election board, more than a dozen of whom took to the podium for three minutes of allotted time to demand county officials institute paper ballots, citing Georgia state law and widely publicized criticisms of the current Dominion electronic system.
There were none of the fireworks that occurred at last month’s meeting, when Beth Majeroni was carried out of the room hand-and-foot by Chatham County police officers after she failed to heed board chairman Thomas Mahoney’s instructions to cease talking about grand jury activities related to her efforts to obtain local election records.
Still, tensions notably escalated when one 50-year-old county resident, after demanding the election board switch Chatham’s voting system, thrust his finger towards board members and repeatedly accused them of “fascism” for failing to get rid of the current election system.
There was one lone dissent. Becky Cheatham, the widow of the late Superior Court Judge Frank Cheatham, told the commissioners that stopping paper ballots in the county in the 1950s was seen by her late husband and others as “one of the most important and far-reaching electoral reforms of the 20th century,” as they were the main means by which corrupt machine and political bosses held on to their power.
Also, there was an unusual “thank you” — at least as far as citizens dealings with government services are concerned. Pooler City councilwoman Karen Williams thanked the election board for its efforts to open another polling station on Pooler, where the number of registered voters had long exceeded the capacity of the system to accommodate.
ICYMI
- “Cobb teacher grilled over book illustrating gender roles in test of ‘divisive concepts’ law” (Georgia Recorder, August 11, 2023) “The case is believed to be the first time a Georgia teacher is facing job loss under Georgia’s 2022 divisive concepts and parental rights laws, and the hearing saw both sides accuse the other of playing politics.”
- “2024 has become the scandal election” (Axios, August 12, 2023) “The two most likely finalists for president in 2024, former President Trump and President Biden, both will be burdened by politically fraught legal cases that together involve a trio of special counsels.”
- “Why Promising New Alzheimer’s Drugs May Not Work as Well in Black Americans” (Capitol B, August 9, 2023) “Guthrie’s mom, Constance, is among the 20% of Black Americans who have Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. That’s about twice the rate of white Americans and somewhat higher than the 14% of Hispanics who live with the disease.”
- “Christianity Today Editor: Evangelicals Call Jesus ‘Liberal’ and ‘Weak’” (New Republic, August 10, 2023) “The editor in chief of Christianity Today is warning that evangelical Christianity is moving too far to the right, to the point that even Jesus’s teachings are considered ‘weak’ now.”
Georgia’s GOP voting evangelist brings message to coast
Garland Favorito is among the leaders of a two-track statewide campaign calling on Gov. Brian Kemp and state lawmakers to replace the state’s current electronic voting system with hand-counted paper ballots before next year’s general election.
Georgia’s Black churches look to go green
Black churches are looking to federal assistance made possible through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to help their congregations benefit from solar panels, EV chargers and energy conservation.
State senators asked to fix contentious talks over local sales tax money
Mayor: Under current state law, cities and counties that can’t agree on how to allocate local sales tax revenues between them must submit to an arbitration process that skews toward counties.
State auditor finds Georgia’s education programs for gifted students need improvement
About 199,000 Georgia students were designated as gifted, representing about 12% of the 1.7 million statewide student body.
How the fake electors in 7 states are central to Trump Jan. 6 indictment
According to the indictment, To gather those fraudulent electors, Trump and his close allies pressured, threatened and lied to state lawmakers and elections officials in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Audit finds more than $105M in unremitted funds at state labor department
While not alleging criminal wrongdoing, the audit concluded the practice of withholding funds from the state treasury in violation of the Georgia Constitution could encourage corruption.
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