Tag: absentee ballots

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Denies That Ballot Harvesting Occurred

Bradley Vasoli

A Montgomery County, Pennsylvania administrator this week responded to the local Republican Party’s allegations of “ballot harvesting,” insisting that video surveillance does not show that it occurred.

As The Pennsylvania Daily Star reported, Montgomery County Republican Committee (MCRC) Chair Liz Preate Havey addressed the county Board of Commissioners last Thursday regarding numerous election-integrity concerns. She mentioned video footage of a woman depositing handfuls of ballots into a drop box in Upper Dublin Township in the run-up to the 2021 general election. Such drop boxes have been in use in Pennsylvania for absentee-ballot delivery since 2020. 

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Federal Court Considers Whether to Count Undated Ballots in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Election

Bradley Vasoli
Pennsylvania Judicial Center

A federal appeals court this week blocked certification of the election results for the contest between Republican David Ritter and Democrat Zachary Cohen for Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas Judge.

Currently, Ritter is 74 votes ahead of Cohen, but the win would flip to the Democrat should the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decide to count 257 absentee ballots that lack handwritten dates on their return envelopes. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania is litigating on behalf of five of the voters who cast those ballots.

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Montgomery County, Pennsylvania GOP Asks Commissioners to Consider Election Reforms

Bradley Vasoli

NORRISTOWN, PA—Montgomery County, Pennsylvania’s Republican Party yesterday asked the county’s Democrat-controlled Board of Elections to consider several election-security measures, mainly regarding absentee voting.

At a County Commissioners’ meeting, Montgomery County Republican Committee (MCRC) Chair Liz Preate Havey said the reforms her organization proposes will curb alleged breaches of law and foulups in administration that have already taken place in the county during recent elections.

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16 Months After the Election, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Makes New Claim About Why Trump Lost the Election in Georgia

Laura Baigert

The reason that President Trump lost in the state of Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is now claiming 16 months after the November 2020 general election, is that 28,000 Georgians skipped the race.

“The brutal truth is that 28,000 Georgians skipped the presidential race. And that’s why President Trump came up short,” Raffensperger said. Meanwhile, Georgians voted down-ballot for state representative, state senator, congressman, but did not vote for anyone for president, according to Raffensperger’s latest claim, Rome News-Tribune reported.

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Florida’s Absentee Ballot Proposal, Described as Racist, Less Stringent Than Other States

Steve Stewart

Florida legislators, led by Republican leaders, are considering changes (SB 524, HB 7067) to the absentee ballot verification process that has one critic calling the proposal  “a recipe for disaster” and another implying the new rules are racist.

Under current law, voters enclose completed mail-in ballots inside “secrecy” envelopes or sleeves before putting them inside another envelope to be mailed to county supervisors of elections or submitted at drop boxes manned by supervisors’ staff.

The new legislative proposals would require voters to put their double-enveloped ballots inside a third envelope and mark the last four digits of their driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, or state ID numbers – whichever number is on file with the election supervisor’s office – to be counted.

Lake County Supervisor of Elections Alan Hays, a Republican who is a former state senator, said the proposal is “a recipe for disaster.”

“Getting voters to follow instructions is not easy,” Hays told the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on Feb. 1. “If you think they’re going to follow the instructions with all of these envelopes, you’ve got another thought coming.”

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State Rep. Fillmore Introduces Sweeping Election Integrity Bill That Would Substantially Change How Elections Are Done in Arizona

Rachel Alexander

Arizona legislators are busy dropping bills to address election fraud this session, due to concerns there was massive fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Rep. John Fillmore (R-Apache Junction) is sponsoring one of the most sweeping bills, HB 2596, which makes substantial changes to elections including giving the Arizona Legislature the final say on approving elections, eliminating most voting by mail, and requiring hand counting of ballots.

Fillmore explained the need for the significant reform during a committee hearing. “I don’t care what the press says,” he said. “I don’t trust ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox or anybody out there. Everybody’s lying to me and I feel like I have a couple hundred ex-wives hanging around me. This is not a President Biden thing. This is not a the other red-headed guy thing. We should have voting in my opinion in person, one day, on paper, with no electronic means and hand counting that day. We need to get back to 1958-style voting.”

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Wisconsin Elections Commission Gives Election Managers Leeway to Add Information to Absentee Ballots

The Center Square

 Local election managers across Wisconsin are being told to fill in missing information – a practice commonly referred to as “curing” – on absentee ballots if they can find it.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Monday night voted down a proposal that would instruct clerks to contact voters before making any changes to absentee ballots.

Commissioners then immediately voted to approve guidance that allows clerks to cure ballots on their own.

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Senate Bill Would Reform Pennsylvania Mail-In Voting

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania Senate committee passed legislation Tuesday to make absentee-ballot canvassing more transparent, clarify ballot-submission deadlines and allow signature “curing” on mail-in-ballot envelopes.

Sen. Judy Ward (R-Hollidaysburg) said her reforms address concerns raised especially by the 2020 presidential election. The Senate State Government Committee advanced the bill in a party-line vote, with Republicans approving and Democrats opposed.

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Pennsylvania Decision Against Counting Undated Mail Ballots Prompts Supreme Court Appeal

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court this week ruled that 257 flawed ballots in a Lehigh County judgeship election cannot be counted, prompting Democratic candidate Zachary Cohen to announce a state Supreme-Court appeal. 

Excluding these mail-in ballots, which contain no date on their return envelopes, puts Republican David Ritter 74 votes ahead of Cohen in their contest for Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas judge, in which about 22,000 total votes were cast. Ritter initially sued in county court to exclude 261 ballots, four of which displayed a date, albeit not on the correct line. Trial Judge Edward D. Reibman (D) handed down a ruling favorable to Cohen, spurring Ritter to appeal to the Commonwealth Court which handles litigation between governing entities, public officials and candidates. 

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DeKalb County GOP Chair: Georgia Law Was Violated in November 2020 Election and Results Should Not Have Been Certified

Laura Baigert

During the November 3, 2020 presidential election, Georgia law was broken in DeKalb County and, as such, the results should never have been certified, according to the chair of the Republican Party there.

Marci McCarthy, head of the DeKalb County GOP since April 2021, told The Georgia Star News that the handling of absentee ballots in her home county during the November 2020 election violated Georgia law.

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Lawsuit Filed Against Fairfax County over Absentee and Mail-In Ballots

Peter D'Abrosca

An election integrity group has filed a lawsuit and motion for an injunction against members of the Fairfax County Board of Elections and the Fairfax County General Registrar.

“The case is brought on behalf of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, a local organization that promotes election integrity,” the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) said in a press release. “The lawsuit explains that Fairfax County is violating Virginia law by accepting and approving applications for absentee and mail-in ballots that do not include the last four digits of the applicant’s Social Security number, as required under Virginia statues.”

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Three Michigan Residents Charged with Absentee Ballot Voter Fraud, Following Concerning Trend

Cooper Moran

Three Michigan residents have been charged with voter fraud involving absentee ballots by state officials, which follows a concerning trend over the past decade.

State Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) alleges Trenae Myesha Rainey submitted two dozen absentee voter applications on behalf of an unknowing Father Murray Nursing Home resident in Macomb County. According to prosecutors, the Centerline clerk “noticed the application signatures didn’t match those in the Qualified Voter File,” WWMT reported.

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Mollie Hemingway’s New Book, ‘Rigged,’ Reveals Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Enabled Asbentee Voting, Known to Favor Democrats

Laura Baigert

In a revealing look at the November 2020 election, “Rigged:  How the Media, Big Tech and the Democrats Seized Our Elections” number one best-selling author Mollie Hemingway’s new book released Tuesday explains how Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger through a number of actions enabled absentee voting that is known to favor Democrats.

With the number of questionable votes and election irregularities in the state, there is not only reason but evidence to question whether Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the November 2020 election by an audit-lowered 11,779 vote margin is legitimate.

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Three Charged in Alleged Election Fraud in 2020 Election

The Center Square

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has charged three women with crimes related to attempted voter fraud in the 2020 general election.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Nessel argued the charges show that when “rare” election fraud happens, the current safeguards stop it.

“These cases highlight the scrutiny applications and ballots undergo throughout the election process, as well as the thorough investigative process that ensues when instances of attempted fraud are suspected,” Nessel said in a statement.

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Witness Signature Will Be Required for Virginia Absentee Ballots, but Some Dems Oppose

The Center Square

A witness signature will be required for absentee ballots cast in Virginia in the gubernatorial election next month, but some Democrats are asking Gov. Ralph Northam to waive the requirement.

Until last year, all absentee ballots were required to be signed by a witness who confirmed the authenticity of the voter. The rule was temporarily suspended during the 2020 election as a COVID-19 precaution, but is currently in place for the 2021 elections, in which Virginians will select their next governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and state house delegates.

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Michael Patrick Leahy Talks About Pop Up Nonprofits Used for Partisan Political Purposes

Julie Carr

  In a special interview, Thursday on First Principles with Phill Kline – host Kline talked with Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO, and editor-in-chief of The Star News Network who uncovered partisan non-profit popups in swing states and the importance of election integrity as the deciding fate of America’s constitutional Republic. Leahy: And it turns out, Phill, as you see the story in Michigan, it was the only state where that Center for Election and Innovation and Research money did not go to the Secretary of State. Now, if it goes to the Secretary of State, it’s discoverable how it was spent. Kline: Right. Leahy: It went to a shell 501 (c) (3) organization that has been around about ten years that had been established by the current Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. And they got $12 million bucks. They sent it to a 501 (c) (3) called the Michigan Center for Election Administration. We just got a copy of their Form 990s from the IRS. And – here’s the punch line – that $12 million dollars was basically all spent in two different groups. $11.8 million dollars went to a Democrat media buy firm that’s a subsidiary of the…

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Analysis of DeKalb County, Georgia 2020 Election Absentee Ballot Transfer Forms Identifies Several Problems

Laura Baigert

An analysis by The Georgia Star News of DeKalb County’s absentee ballot drop box transfer forms from the November 2020 election identified a number of problems that puts the documents out of compliance with the Georgia Board of Election Emergency Rule 183-1-14-1.8-.14.

The Star News reviewed 725 absentee ballot drop box transfer forms, obtained from the DeKalb County law department in response to an open records request, that were used by DeKalb County during the November 2020 election to document the chain of custody of the 61,731 absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes .

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Commentary: Election Rules Have to Mean Something

RealClearWire

The rule of law must be respected for liberty to be protected.  Changing the rules to achieve a desired outcome undermines both, and when this is done in the administration of elections, democracy itself is imperiled.

Unfortunately, the left shows no compunction about wielding power for partisan advantage, especially when it comes to election administration. They’ve even gone so far as to create new rules to suit their purposes, regardless of whether they possess the authority to do so.

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Fulton County Fails to Meet Their Own Deadline to Provide Absentee Ballot Chain of Custody Documents From November 2020 Election, Delays Response for a Third Time

Laura Baigert

Fulton County election officials have failed to meet a second response date they set to provide The Georgia Star News with complete chain of custody documents for absentee ballots deposited into drop boxes during the November 3, 2020, general election.  For a third time, Fulton County has extended their response date, this time to August 6, 2021.

Fulton County’s communication about the third extension comes more than eight months and five follow-up requests after The Star News filed an initial open records request on December 1, 2020, for the drop box transfer forms that document the critical chain of custody of absentee ballots deposited in 37 drop boxes installed throughout Fulton County for the 41 days of the November 2020 election period.

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Georgia County GOP Clashes with Raffensperger After Office Brushes Off Voter Fraud

Peter D'Abrosca

Just days after Secretary of State’s office chief operation officer Gabriel Sterling brushed off concrete proof of illegal voting in the 2020 election, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) was met with protests in Bibb County. 

GOP protestors in Bibb County held up signs and demanded a full forensic audit of the vote tallies in the Peach State as Raffensperger spoke to the Bibb County GOP, according to WMAZ. 

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Fulton County Fails to Meet Their Own Extended Response Date for Providing Absentee Ballot Chain of Custody Documents from the November 2020 Election

Laura Baigert
Fulton County Response

Fulton County officials have failed to meet the extended response date they set for providing The Georgia Star News with complete chain of custody documents for absentee ballots deposited into drop boxes during the November 3, 2020, general election.

More than seven months and five follow-up requests after The Star News filed an initial open records request on December 1, 2020, Fulton County Legal Assistant Shana Eatmon said they needed until July 15, to provide the requested documents.

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‘Horrendous’: Georgia Audit Lawyer Demands Full Investigation into Fulton County’s Ballot Irregularities

Admin

Alawyer spearheading a major ballot audit inside Georgia’s largest county is warning the irregularities apparent in that county’s election management are “horrendous” and cut against “the basic principle of our democracy.”

Atlanta-based attorney Bob Cheeley made those claims while talking to Just the News editor-in-chief John Solomon on Tuesday night’s “Securing our Elections: Protecting Your Vote” special on Real America’s Voice.

Cheeley is among the investigators approved by a Georgia court to audit the 2020 absentee ballots of Fulton County, Ga., a county critical to Joe Biden’s historic 2020 win of Georgia that helped propel him to the White House.

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68 Percent of Previously Missing Fulton County Drop Box Transfer Forms Lack Receipt Time that Documents Chain of Custody

Laura Baigert

A preliminary analysis by The Georgia Star News of Fulton County drop box transfer forms covering five days in October 2020 that were previously missing reveals that 68 percent lack a recording of the time the absentee ballots were received by the registrar or designee which documents the ballot chain of custody.

Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) News published a report on the transfer forms that they said they received from Fulton County on June 15. 

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Commentary: Georgia Conducting Secret 2020 Ballot Review –– Keeping Plaintiffs in the Dark

RealClearWire

After several Fulton County, Ga., poll monitors testified last year that boxes of mail-in ballots for Joe Biden looked liked they’d been run through a photocopy machine, state investigators quietly broke the seal on one suspicious box and inspected the hundreds of votes it contained for signs of fraud, RealClearInvestigations has learned exclusively.

At the same time, a key whistleblower told RCI that state investigators pressured her to recant her story about what she and other poll monitors had observed — what they called unusually “pristine” mail-in ballots while sorting through them during last November’s hand recount.

“I felt I was under investigation,” said Suzi Voyles, a longtime Fulton County poll manager whose sworn affidavits have been used by election watchdogs to sue the county for access to the ballots in question.

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Fulton County Again Fails to Deliver Missing Absentee Ballot Transfer Forms to The Georgia Star News

Laura Baigert

Fulton County elections officials have failed to provide complete absentee ballot drop box transfer forms to The Georgia Star News that they provided to Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) News last week.

The Star News broke the news on Monday, June 14, that a Fulton County elections official admitted that “a few forms are missing” and that during a COVID outbreak at the Elections Preparation Center (EPC) “some procedural paperwork may have been misplaced,” with regard to 385 drop box transfer forms The Star News is still missing from 1,565 transfer forms Fulton County documented on a spreadsheet that tracked daily absentee ballot collections during the November 2020 election.

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Georgia Public Broadcasting Reports Receiving Transfer Forms from Fulton County Not Provided to The Georgia Star News

Laura Baigert
Georgia Public Broadcasting building

Georgia Public Broadcasting News, part of the taxpayer-funded network of state PBS television stations and NPR radio stations, reported Wednesday, June 16, 2021, that they received from Fulton County all but eight of the 385 missing absentee ballot drop box transfer forms The Georgia Star News has reported on.

After six months and several open records requests, 385 of the transfer forms that document the chain of custody of absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes and transferred to the county registrar during the November 3, 2020, election have still not been provided to The Star News.

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Georgia Star News Exclusive: Fulton County Election Official Admits Chain of Custody Documents Missing for 2020 Absentee Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes

Laura Baigert

In a stunning admission about the critical chain of custody documents for absentee ballots deposited into drop boxes in the November 3, 2020, election, Fulton County election officials have said that “some procedural paperwork may have been misplaced.”

This is the first time that an election official has made an admission regarding the occurrence of significant election issues.

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Commentary: Voter Photo IDs Are the Rule in Europe and Elsewhere

RealClearWire

Democrats and much of the media are pushing to make permanent the extraordinary, pandemic-driven measures to relax voting rules during the 2020 elections – warning anew of racist voter “suppression” otherwise. Yet democracies in Europe and elsewhere tell a different story – of the benefits of stricter voter ID requirements after hard lessons learned. 

A database on voting rules worldwide compiled by the Crime Prevention Research Center, which I run, shows that election integrity measures are widely accepted globally, and have often been adopted by countries after they’ve experienced fraud under looser voting regimes.

Britain is Europe’s outlier in generally not requiring voter IDs, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson aims to change that. He went to the polls in May with wife-to-be Carrie Symonds.

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Ohio Democrats Walk out on Voting Bill Debate

The Center Square
Close up of mail in ballot

A bill that would eliminate early voting in Ohio the day before an election and stop the mailing of absentee ballots 10 days before Election Day got its first hearing in the Ohio, and it came with controversy.

Democratic lawmakers walked out of the House Government Oversight Committee on Thursday after they say committee Chair Rep. Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, threatened to cut off debate.

“What we saw today was unsettling – Republicans unwilling to engage in civil discourse on their bill that would silence the voices of Ohioans by rolling back the right to vote,” said House Minority Leader Emilia Strong Sykes, D-Akron. “If Republicans are unwilling to hear the people out, Democrats are going to take this issue to the people.”

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Governor DeSantis Signs Florida Elections Reform Bill

Grant Holcomb
Ron DeSantis

On Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis signed an elections reform bill into law, causing much debate over the new law’s contents.

The bill, SB 90, designed to ensure election integrity, has been the subject of debate for weeks since the Florida Legislature was passing the bill through committees. The bill will install new requirements for ballot drop boxes as well as mail-in voting, specifically voters who wish to vote absentee will have to ask for a ballot each general election cycle. Also, the drop boxes will need to be staffed by an employee from the supervisor of elections’ office whenever the box is receiving ballots, and times to access the drop boxes will be limited.

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General Assembly Passes Tennessee Election Integrity Act Requiring Ballot Watermarking

Corinne Murdock

After Senate passage yesterday, the House passed the “Tennessee Election Integrity Act” requiring watermarking on paper absentee ballots. Local election commissions would be required to create unique watermarks for paper absentee ballots. Additionally, election officials must write the word “rejected” and the reason for rejection across the face of a rejected ballot.

Only one individual voted against the bill – State Representative Jason Powell (D-Nashville). Powell didn’t give an explanation on the House floor hearing as to why he voted against the act. As The Tennessee Star reported on Monday, the bill received unanimous and bipartisan support in the House.

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Florida Legislature Hearing Elections Reform Bills

Grant Holcomb
Dennis Baxley

The Florida House is hearing an elections reform package and the Florida Senate is hearing a bill amending Florida’s election law related to ballot drop-boxes and absentee ballot signature verification.

Sen. Dennis Baxley’s (R-12) SB 90 passed the Senate Rules Committee by a 10-7 vote, and Baxley said the bill is well-intentioned designed to protect Florida’s voters and the integrity of Florida’s elections.

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Months After Trump Complaints, Some Courts Are Finding Irregularities in 2020 Elections

Admin

Long after former President Donald Trump dropped his legal challenges to the 2020 election, some courts in battleground states are beginning to declare the way widespread absentee ballots were implemented or counted violated state laws.

The latest ruling came this month in Michigan, where the State Court of Claims concluded that Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s instructions on signature verification for absentee ballots violated state law.

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Mississippi Judge Orders New Election After Finding 79 Percent of Absentee Ballots Invalid

Admin

A Mississippi judge has ordered a new election in an alderman race after finding 79% of absentee ballots were invalid and evidence of fraud and criminal activity.

Judge Jeff Weill on Monday said that 66 of 84 absentee ballots cast in the June runoff for a city of Aberdeen alderman seat were invalid and should never have been counted. He also said he found evidence of fraud and criminal activity in how absentee ballots were handled, how votes were counted and the actions by some at the polling place, according to WCBI-TV, a CBS affiliate.

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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.

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Two Election Integrity Bills Headed Towards Georgia Senate Floor

Peter D'Abrosca
Woman voting at booth

Two bills to help ensure election integrity in Georgia are one step closer to the Republican-controlled Senate floor, according to Tuesday reports. 

“Senate subcommittee votes 3-2 to end at-will absentee voting in Georgia, making it only available to those over 75, a doctor’s note or out of town. SB71 advances to full committee,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mark Niesse said on Twitter. 

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Lawsuit on Fulton County Mail-In Ballots Still Underway, Ruling Anticipated Next Week

Corinne Murdock

A judgment allowing or prohibiting the inspection of Fulton County’s mail-in ballots may occur as early as next week. The plaintiffs, organized by the election integrity organization Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA), have been engaged in litigation for nearly a month to obtain an inspection of those ballots.

VoterGA had anticipated receiving a ruling allowing them to inspect the county’s mail-in ballots during their last hearing on January 15. However, after three hours debating the county’s compliance with open records requests concerning the mail-in ballots, akin to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requirements, Chief Judge Brian Amero decided to only address that issue.

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