Author: Tiffany Morgan

Biden’s Approval Hits New Low in FiveThirtyEight Tracker

Tiffany Morgan
Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s approval rating hit a new low of just over 43% in FiveThirtyEight’s polling tracker as he confronts multiple economic and legislative headwinds.

Biden’s approval stood at 43.5%, and has steadily declined since July. His disapproval stood at 50.6%, the highest of his presidency.

Biden’s slide has coincided with another spike in coronavirus cases, a messy Afghanistan withdrawal and economic challenges ranging from supply chain issues to inflation. He has also pinned much of his domestic agenda on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and his sweeping budget, but left-wing and moderate Democrats have yet to agree on a compromise that would give both the votes needed to pass the House, where they hold just a three-vote margin, and the 50-50 Senate.

Read the full story

Seven Months Later, Georgia County Officials Have Not Produced Chain of Custody Records for 316,000 Absentee Vote by Mail Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes in 2020 Election

Tiffany Morgan

Seven months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, state and county officials in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody records for more than 317,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes located around the state for that election.

Read the full story

Georgia Still Has Not Produced Chain of Custody Records for 333,000 Absentee Vote by Mail Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes in 2020 Election

Tiffany Morgan

  Six months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, officials at the state and county level in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody records for more than 333,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes located around the state for that election. Joe Biden was certified as the victor of Georgia and its 16 Electoral College votes by a margin of 11,599 votes, or less than 0.25 percent of the 5 million votes cast in the November 3, 2020 presidential election in Georgia. According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, 1.3 million of those votes were cast as absentee vote by mail ballots. Based on polling conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, 700,000 of those absentee vote by mail ballots were sent via regular mail and 600,000 were deposited in the estimated 300 drop boxes located around the state and were manually picked up and transported by election workers to the local county registrar for subsequent counting. As of May 17, only 59 of Georgia’s 159 counties have provided ballot transfer form data to The Georgia Star News. The number of absentee by mail ballots delivered to registrars in those 159 counties total only 266,492,…

Read the full story

Five and a Half Months After 2020 Election Fulton County Fails to Produce Complete Chain of Custody Documents for Absentee Vote by Mail Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes

Tiffany Morgan

Nearly half a year after the 2020 Election, and four months after the original inquiry, Fulton County has failed to fulfill the Open Records Request with The Georgia Star News. Although the county did provide some chain of custody documents, initial analysis by The Star News indicates that the Fulton County ballot transfer form records sent may be incomplete.

On January 22, Fulton County Officials responded to the Open Records request made by The Star News with two PDF files. As previously reported, of those two files – one with a label that ended with BX-1, and another with a label that ended with BX-3 – showed ballot transfer form records for 36,635 absentee votes by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes.

Read the full story

Five Months After 2020 Election, Georgia Still Has Not Produced Chain of Custody Records for 355,000 Absentee Vote by Mail Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes

Tiffany Morgan

Five months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, officials at the state and county level in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody records for more than 355,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes located around the state for that election.

Joe Biden was certified as the victor of Georgia and its 16 Electoral College votes by a margin of 11,599 votes, or less than 0.25 percent of the 5 million votes cast in the November 3, 2020 presidential election in Georgia. According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, 1.3 million of those votes were cast as absentee vote by mail ballots. Based on polling conducted by John McLaughlin & Associates, 700,000 of those absentee vote by mail ballots were sent via regular mail and 600,000 were deposited in the estimated 300 drop boxes located around the state and were manually picked up and transported by election workers to the local county registrar for subsequent counting.

Read the full story

Four Months After 2020 Presidential Election in Georgia No Chain of Custody Documents Produced for 404,000 Absentee Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes; Fulton County One of 35 Scofflaw Counties

Tiffany Morgan

Four months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, state and county officials in Georgia have failed to produce chain of custody documents for an estimated 404,691 vote by mail absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes and subsequently delivered to county registrars for counting.

As of March 3, only 56 of Georgia’s 159 counties have provided ballot transfer form data to The Georgia Star News. The number of absentee by mail ballots delivered to registrars in those 56 counties total only 195,309, or 32.5 percent, of the estimated 600,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes and delivered to county registrars and counted in Georgia’s 2020 presidential.

Read the full story

Landmarks in 24 States Will Light Up for National School Choice Week

Tiffany Morgan

Parents looking to alternatives to educate their children, unhappy with state lockdowns and public school system approaches to learning can find resources available through National School Choice Week 2021 events being held all this week.

The events and resources are designed to empower parents with information about the best educational environments and options for their children.

Read the full story

Still No Chain of Custody Documents Produced in Georgia for 76 Percent of Absentee Ballots Cast in Drop Boxes Two Months Ago in Presidential Election

Tiffany Morgan

Two months after the November 3 presidential election, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office and county officials in the state have failed to produce chain of custody documents known as ballot transfer forms that tracked the movement of 76 percent of the estimated 600,000 absentee ballots deposited in 300 drop boxes around the state and subsequently delivered to county registrars responsible for accurately and honestly counting those votes in that election.

Read the full story

Georgia Milestones End-of-Course (EOC) Exams Not Weighed During COVID-19 School Year, But Will for 2020-21

Tiffany Morgan

  The Georgia Department of Education (GDOE) unanimously voted to approve State School Superintendent Richard Woods’ recommendation of a .01 percent course grade weight for Georgia Milestones End-of-Course (EOC) exams for the 2020-21 school year. The exam is a part of state and federal requirement. According to Meghan Frick of the GaDOE Communications Office, it is a federal requirement to take one-time exams – from third grade to senior year – in math, English language arts, science, and social studies. Woods proposed earlier in the year to relax federal requirements for standardized tests due to the pandemic but was denied by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Due to the impact COVID-19, students and teachers had to adapt to the new regulations and procedures to focus on new ways of learning and teaching in a virtual manner; instructed by the state and DOE. “I wish to thank the State Board of Education for their unanimous support of this proposal,” Superintendent Woods said. “I firmly believe this is the right thing for kids – we must ensure students and teachers are not penalized for circumstances beyond their control.” A public survey was conducted by the Department and participants had a total of…

Read the full story

Nearly Two-Thirds of Georgia Counties Fail to Produce Chain of Custody Documents for 460,000 Absentee Ballots After the November 3 General Election

Tiffany Morgan

  With eleven days until Georgia’s U.S. runoff election, a large majority of the state’s counties have failed to produce chain of custody documents for some 460,000 absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes that were counted in the state’s November 3 general election as requested by The Georgia Star News. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified that Democrat Joe Biden edged out President Trump by a thin majority and as a result, Mr. Biden received all 16 votes cast by Democrat electors when the Electoral College convened in the 50 state capitals on Monday. Of the roughly 5 million votes cast in the November 3 election, election officials report that more than 1.3 million were by absentee ballots. In the current tally, Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential contest by 11,779 votes – or just 0.235 percent. A poll of likely voters in Georgia conducted by John McLaughlin and Associates found that 26 percent of respondents said they voted absentee. When the pollster asked the absentee voters if they mailed or deposited their ballot in a drop box, 53 percent said they mailed their ballot, representing about 700,000 votes; and 46 percent – representing 600,000 votes…

Read the full story

Pandemic Restrictions Cause a Rash of Closures in Atlanta Restaurant Scene

Tiffany Morgan

Over 25 area restaurants closed their doors for good – several that have been in business for decades – due to the impact of Health Department stay-at-home orders and restrictions on business operations that began in March 2020 with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A few days after Thanksgiving, Governor Brian Kemp issued an executive order further restricting restaurant operations. The Georgia Restaurant Association (GRA) published a statement shortly after.

Read the full story

Schools Close For the Remainder of Semester, Unsure of Returning In-Person

Tiffany Morgan

  Georgia schools are closed for the rest of the Fall semester, and schools are unsure if any will return face-to-face by the New Year. The Georgia Department of Education reports 2,235 school closures, shutting more than 1.7 million students out of the classroom. Governor Kemp signed an executive order mid-March of 2020 closing all public, elementary and post-secondary public schools in Georgia. The order – originally set to expire at the end of that month – has was extended through the end of the 2019-2020 school year, and indications are that the school system will remain shut down into 2021. Kemp has not made any statements regarding schools remaining virtual through Spring. But state school officials stated in an email sent to parents obtained by The Georgia Star News that teachers and staff should be ready for virtual learning, since opening back up on January 6 is unclear with the rise of COVID-19 cases. State School Superintendent Richard Woods said in a July statement, “Local districts have authority to chart their course for upcoming school year. Our role is to support them.” In a separate statement, Woods said, “we must choose compassion over compliance.” When schools started reopening at…

Read the full story

Amid Extended School Closures, Athletic Programs to Cautiously Eye Reopening

Tiffany Morgan

  Athletic programs and sporting events will be starting back up in the spring sports season– baseball, football, track and additional sports – with strict COVID-19 guidelines in place. In mid-March, Governor Brian Kemp signed an executive order closing all schools for the 2019-2020 school year. The Georgia High School Association (GHSA) published a statement, made by Kemp, postponing the State Literary competitions, which includes extracurricular activities like speech, debate, and theatre. In addition to the suspension of in-person learning in schools, athletic programs, and other competitive events, Kemp’s order – originally set to end at the end of March 2020 – was extended through the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Students’ prom, senior nights, and award ceremonies were cancelled as well. The GHSA published a statement on March 12 from comments, made by Executive Director of the GHSA Dr. Robin Hines about the final decisions to proceed with sports. Hines stated it was up to the local school systems but encouraged to follow guidelines made by the GHSA. By June of 2020, the GHSA released recommendations to open conditioning – which is exercise training to enhance physical performance – for member schools, with restrictions in place, stating, “There…

Read the full story

Vaccines Arrive in Georgia, Healthcare Personnel First to be Vaccinated

Tiffany Morgan

A total of 5,850 doses of vaccines arrived in Georgia Monday, as part of a “two-dose series.”

According to the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH), “initial COVID-19 vaccine supply is limited, DPH is following the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and prioritizing healthcare personnel and residents of long-term care facilities for vaccination. Vaccine will be given through closed points of dispensing or PODs. These sites include public health clinics, hospitals, long-term care facilities, pharmacies, etc., and are only accessible to individuals in defined priority groups.”

Read the full story

No Chain of Custody Documents in Georgia for 465,000 Drop Box Absentee Ballots Six Weeks After November 3 Election

Tiffany Morgan

  With Georgia’s U.S. runoff election just three weeks from now, there are still no publicly available chain of custody documents 465,000 drop box absentee ballots counted six weeks ago in the state’s  November 3 general election. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified that Democrat Joe Biden received slightly less than 12,000 more votes than Donald Trump in that election. As a result of that certification, Biden received all 16 votes cast by Democrat electors when the Electoral College convened in the 50 state capitals on Monday. In the five days since The Georgia Star News reported that no chain of custody documents were publicly available for 500,000 drop box absentee ballots counted in the November 3 general election, the 159 counties in the state have made little progress in narrowing that statewide drop box absentee ballot chain of custody gap, and the Secretary of State has shown no interest in providing any assistance in narrowing that gap. As The Star News reported last week: As previously reported, the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Breitbart News two weeks after the November 3 election that it did not know how many of the 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in…

Read the full story

With Georgia Runoff Elections Less Than a Month Away, Neither the State Nor the Counties Have Produced Chain of Custody Records for 500,000 Absentee Ballots Placed in Drop Boxes for November 3 Election

Tiffany Morgan

The two U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia will be held on January 5, less than one month from now.

But more than one month after the controversial November 3 general election, documents necessary to establish the chain of custody for more than 83 percent of the estimated 600,000 absentee ballots placed in drop boxes by voters and subsequently delivered to county election officials by county poll workers have yet to be produced by either state or county officials.

As previously reported, the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Breitbart News two weeks after the November 3 election that it did not know how many of the 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election (out of 5 million total) were delivered by mail vs. drop box, but the counties should know.

Read the full story

Georgia’s Fulton County Says It Will Provide Chain of Custody Records for Absentee Ballots from Drop Boxes by January 19, 2021 – One Day Before Presidential Inauguration

Tiffany Morgan

The Georgia Star News filed an open records request on Tuesday, December 1, for all “ballot transfer forms” from the Nov. 3 General Election in Fulton County.

Fulton County stated: “We believe we can have responsive records to you by January 19, 2021. That said, should responsive materials come available sooner, we will provide them to you.”

Read the full story

President Trump Holds a Victory Rally in Valdosta, Georgia; Calls on Voters to Support Senators Perdue and Loeffler in Runoff

Tiffany Morgan

President Donald Trump spoke to raucous crowd of tens of thousands of Georgia voters Saturday evening in Valdosta, vowing to “never surrender,” in the important runoff in January.

Although Trump did not mention anything of a special session from Georgia Governor Kemp. As previously reported by The Georgia Star News, “legislators have petitioned for a special session ahead of the runoff election for several weeks.”

The president spoke on behalf of Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Both are running against Democratic candidates in the Georgia January 5 runoff election.

Read the full story

DeKalb County Cannot Find Chain of Custody Records for Absentee Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes: ‘It Has Not Been Determined If Responsive Records to Your Request Exist’

Tiffany Morgan

  DeKalb County responded to an Open Records Request from The Georgia Star News to produce the ballot transfer forms that formed the critical chain of custody link in the absentee ballots deposited in the near 300 drop boxes in the state and transported to county election offices in a letter received on Friday that said the county did not know if such records exist. Earlier this week, the Secretary of States’ office told Breitbart News that it did not know how many of the 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election  were delivered by mail vs. drop box, but the counties should know. The Georgia Star News filed an open records request on Tuesday for all “ballot transfer forms” from the Nov. 3 General Election in DeKalb County. But there is no way to determine the chain of custody. The open records request reply, received from Assistant County Attorney at DeKalb County Dexter Q. Bond, Jr., stated, “it has not yet been determined if responsive records to your request exist.” The ballot transfer forms that remain unknown in DeKalb are a part of Georgia’s new Election Code implemented this past summer. The DeKalb County response was unusual…

Read the full story

Georgia’s Cobb County Says 89,000 Absentee Ballots Delivered from Drop Boxes, but Has Not Yet Produced Chain of Custody Logs

Tiffany Morgan

Nearly one in four of the 387,305 votes cast in Cobb County in the 2020 general election were absentee ballots placed in the drop boxes located around the county.

More than 1.3 million absentee ballots were returned and counted in the 2020 general election in Georgia, out of 5 million votes cast. In the current tally, Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential contest by 12,670 votes.

Read the full story