As more issues arise from the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, Georgia is taking steps to better secure its future elections through cleaning its voter rolls.
According to state investigators, the county’s audit of the most recent presidential election included multiple errors but the overall outcome of the audit did not change.
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The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday unanimously rejected a bid from former President Donald Trump’s legal team to block an investigation from Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis into his efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in the Peach State.
Trump’s team filed the request on Friday, after previously filing a similar bid in the Fulton County Superior Court, The Hill reported. That the lower court has yet to decide the matter formed the basis of the Supreme Court’s refusal.
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Georgia’s Supreme Court has denied a request to hear an appeal challenging the bond agreement state officials used to lure a controversial electric vehicle manufacturing project to the state.
At issue is a deal the Georgia Department of Economic Development and the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton struck to give $1.5 billion in incentives to electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive. The company is building a $5 billion plant in Morgan and Newton counties.
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Governor Brian Kemp appointed Chris Hosey to serve as Director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
“Chris has dedicated his career to protecting the people of our state as a proud member of law enforcement,” Kemp said in a Saturday statement. “With over 35 years of experience at the GBI, he brings a wealth of institutional knowledge and skill to this role. I’m confident he will bring the same level of commitment to the job that he has shown throughout his years of service.”
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Georgia reported decreased monthly tax collections for the fourth consecutive month.
Georgia’s net tax collections of more than $2.8 billion in June decreased 0.4 percent, or $10.9 million, compared to a year ago. The Peach State reported decreased tax collections in March, April and May.
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An Atlanta City Council committee has passed a measure to advocate for punishing railroads that block grade crossings for prolonged periods, the latest salvo in an ongoing dispute between railroads and communities nationwide.
The Atlanta measure calls on the Georgia General Assembly and Congress to pass legislation limiting how long freight trains can block a grade crossing.
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A U.S. senator from Georgia is introducing legislation to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, announced the Fentanyl Trafficking Prevention Act, which could slap social media companies with criminal penalties of up to $10 million for facilitating the illicit distribution or dispensing of cocaine, methamphetamine, opioids and synthetic opioids. According to a news release from Ossoff’s office, these actions already run afoul of service providers’ terms of service.
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Chairman Josh McKoon appointed Travis Bowden on Wednesday as the new executive director of the Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP).
“With the news that our Executive Director Ryan Caudelle would be leaving the Georgia Republican Party for a new and exciting opportunity in the conservative movement, I was faced with quickly identifying and hiring an Executive Director who could keep the positive momentum we have achieved in the last 31 days going and to accelerate initiatives our leadership intends to roll out in 2023,” McKoon said in a statement. “I am excited to announce I found that Executive Director and am appointing longtime grassroots activist, state committee member, and political consultant Travis Bowden to fill this important role.”
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Kia plans to spend more than $200 million to accommodate the assembly of its new electric SUV at its west Georgia facility.
State officials said the project will create roughly 200 new jobs at Kia’s West Point plant, Kia Corporation’s first manufacturing site in North America. When assembly of the EV9 starts in the second quarter of 2024, it will be the fifth model to be assembled at Kia Georgia.
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The U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia have launched a civil investigation into the conditions at Fulton County Jail.
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An Atlanta City Council committee has signed off on a measure requiring gas stations to have surveillance cameras, a proposal proponents say will keep residents safe.
With the thumbs up from the Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee, the full city council will consider the measure at its Aug. 7 meeting, a city official confirmed to The Center Square.
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The election integrity group VoterGA has announced its support for the recently-introduced American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Greater Georgia, a nonprofit organization focused on voter engagement in the state, announced the launch of its first-ever candidate recruitment program ahead of the November 2023 municipal election.
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Georgia State Representative Mesha Mainor (R-Atlanta) announced Tuesday her decision to leave the Democrat Party and join the Republican Party.
Mainor said her decision was based on morals, not politics, adding, “I will NEVER apologize for being a black woman with a mind of my own.”
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Newly-elected chairman of the Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP) Josh McKoon recently announced four key appointments to the party’s executive committee.
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Georgia’s Qualified Education Expense Tax Credit (QEEC) could save the state and local school districts millions of dollars in expenses.
However, the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts could not determine the exact fiscal impact because the “switcher rate” — the number of scholarship recipients who would have attended a public school without a Student Scholarship Organizations scholarship — is unknown.
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The Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice should improve its data collection and analysis and increase its management oversight.
Those are among the findings of a new audit from the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts.
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South Fulton, Georgia, Mayor Khalid Kamau was arrested and charged with first-degree burglary and criminal trespass after entering a home that he says he thought was abandoned.
Kamau was booked into the Fulton County Jail on Saturday and released that same day after posting $11,000 in bond, records show.
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A Georgia judge has ruled against the Fulton County Republican Party in its effort to gets a nominee onto the county election board.
The group filed a request for a temporary restraining to keep the county’s Board of Commissioners from rejecting the group’s nominee to the election board and keeping the existing one.
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The Georgia Department of Transportation awarded 20 projects totaling more than $83.4 million in May.
For fiscal 2023, GDOT officials said they awarded $1.8 billion in construction contracts.
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A Georgia lawmaker wants to increase the penalties for anyone who sets a law enforcement vehicle on fire.
Rep. Deborah Silcox, R-Sandy Springs, announced a renewed push for House Bill 500 when lawmakers return in January. The announcement comes after vandals set fire to law enforcement motorcycles parked at an Atlanta Police Department facility on Southside Industrial Parkway that is home to the Atlanta Police Training Academy and its special operations precinct.
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The Fulton County GOP is suing the county Board of Commissioners for rejecting its nominee to an elections board, alleging he was not appointed for having previously raised concerns about voter rolls.
Fulton’s Republican Party says county law requires the seven-member board to appoint party nominees to Fulton’s Board of Registration and Elections if they meet all the qualifications. And not appointing such a nominee the board is violating the law, according to the lawsuit.
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The head of the Georgia Composite Medical Board says the agency has its “foot back on the gas” and is progressing on a series of recommendations in a follow-up state audit.
A recent finding from the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts found that while the agency has addressed some shortcomings uncovered in a November 2020 audit, it has not progressed on others, including performing mandatory background checks for general physician licensure applicants.
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A woman from Atlanta has been sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for stealing more than $9.4 million from Amazon while employed as a manager for the company.
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The head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta says the cumulative effects of monetary policy adjustments are showing signs of working.
The Federal Open Market Committee recently voted to maintain the 5 percent to 5.25 percent federal funds rate. While the FOMC’s Summary of Economic Projections “are not true forecasts in the statistical sense” or “commitments to follow a particular course of action,” financial market watchers view these projections as indicators of economic conditions, Raphael Bostic, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said.
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Two individuals who were refusing to leave a Home Depot were arrested Thursday, according to the Atlanta Police Department (APD).
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VoterGA is calling on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “unplug” the Dominion Voting Systems across Georgia following an expert report evaluating the security of the state’s voting equipment.
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The Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP) has applauded four recent rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court surrounding the topics of affirmative action, religious discrimination, and debt forgiveness.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has transferred more than $8.9 million from the Governor’s Emergency Fund to several state agencies, including millions for public safety and a decades-long fight over water.
As part of the allocation, Kemp, a Republican, is sending $5.7 million to cover costs — including counsel fees and litigation expenses — stemming from a long-standing dispute over water use in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River basins.
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The second week of the disbarment trial of Trump attorney and constitutional scholar John Eastman concluded Friday, with testimony from the State Bar of California’s (SBC) expert witnesses Justin Grimmer and Jonathan Brater, director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections (MBE). Grimmer is a political science professor at Stanford.
Much of SBC attorney Duncan Carling’s questions to Grimmer consisted of asking him to debunk claims of election fraud, prompting First Amendment attorney Mark Fitzgibbons to tweet, “Am I wrong, but isn’t this bizarre CA Bar trial of Trump lawyer Dr John Eastman hearing more evidence than all the pre-Jan 6 election litigation challenges combined?” Analyzing election fraud claims did not come up in the 2020 election cases, since the judges dismissed them on technicalities without getting to the merits.
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The Georgia Lottery Corp. celebrated its 30th anniversary this week at the Georgia State Capitol.
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A Georgia House working group is exploring how the state can attract and retain state troopers, and it could lead to additional state funding for increased compensation.
“Ultimately, your work should allow us to increase the number of state patrol troopers keeping our highways and our communities safe,” State House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said during a Tuesday House Working Group on Public Safety meeting. “…This is not a simple issue; it’s multifaceted. It’s going to take some really good thought and some inspection and contemplation to come up with solutions and bring back to us.”
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One individual was arrested for throwing spoiled meat at Atlanta police officers during a protest against the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center on Wednesday, the Atlanta Police Department (APD) announced in a press release.
The Atlanta City Council approved the training center in September 2021, and it has been a source of controversy ever since.
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The second week of the State Bar of California’s (SBC) disbarment trial against Trump attorney John Eastman resumed on Thursday, after a brief break due to one of the attorneys becoming sick. Throughout much of the day, SBC attorney Duncan Carling grilled Eastman about his allegations of illegal activity occurring in the 2020 election.
Carling repeated many of Eastman’s claims from the pleadings he filed in cases like Trump v. Raffensperger, prompting First Amendment attorney Mark Fitzgibbons to tweet, “The CA Bar lawyer is actually doing more to convince us the election illegalities merited what Prof Eastman recommended to his client. Courts rejecting cases on standing without EVER hearing evidence did a terrible injustice to the Constitution, and disenfranchised voters.”
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The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) announced Tuesday that Independence Day travelers would not be delayed by construction on Georgia roads during this year’s holiday.
GDOT announced that the department will suspend all construction-related lane closures on interstates and state routes from Friday, June 30 from 12 p.m. until 5 a.m. Wednesday, July 5.
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Georgia authorities have approved $17.3 million in Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank loans and grants for seven transportation infrastructure projects across the state.
“Transportation infrastructure projects often entail large upfront costs,” State Road and Tollway Authority Executive Director Jannine Miller said in an announcement. “Having the options of grants and low interest loans from the state not only makes these projects more affordable but reduces the pressure on local budgets to support other important services to citizens.”
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wants state lawmakers to increase the penalties for anyone who tampers or tries to tamper with voting machines in the state.
According to Raffensperger’s office, anyone convicted of attempting to interfere with a voting machine — a felony in Georgia— faces between one and 10 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 penalty.
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Governor Brian Kemp and the State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) Board of Directors announced on Tuesday the approval of $17.3 million in Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank (GTIB) loans and grants to fund seven transportation infrastructure projects across the state.
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The Chamblee Police Department (CPD) recently launched a new K9 program following approval from the city council.
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wants state lawmakers to increase the penalties for anyone who tampers or tries to tamper with voting machines in the state.
According to Raffensperger’s office, anyone convicted of attempting to interfere with a voting machine — a felony in Georgia— faces between one and 10 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 penalty.
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Georgia U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) suggested this week that somebody attempted to spy on her through a television in her Washington D.C. residence.
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A Georgia State Senate study committee will explore how the state can help mitigate the truck driver shortage.
In April 2022, Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, issued an executive order, which, in part, allowed heavier trucks to operate on Peach State roads. The governor subsequently renewed the executive order, but it expired in March.
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A state lawmaker says Georgia needs to create a state cyber command and should be hastened in the wake of a Russian cyber-attack that hit the University System of Georgia and several federal agencies.
According to officials, Russian hackers have claimed responsibility for the Friday, June 16, attack, which exploited a vulnerability in “MOVEit,” a data transfer tool.
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Georgia U.S. Representative Buddy Carter (R-GA-01) recently led a group of congressional lawmakers in sending a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra calling on the department to “prioritize American-made pharmaceuticals in the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).”
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An automotive parts manufacturer plans to establish a new facility in Henry County, and the state is offering “customized training services” as part of the project.
NVH Korea plans to spend $72 million on the Locust Grove facility and create more than 160 jobs. The new facility at Gardner Logistics Park on Colvin Drive will supply battery parts for electric vehicles in the United States.
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Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr released a statement Friday afternoon shortly after DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced she was withdrawing her office from the prosecution of all current cases related to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in unincorporated DeKalb County.
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Georgia has a 3.2% unemployment rate and roughly 5.1 million people in its workforce, but Peach State companies struggle to recruit employees.
And, a looming recession may only temporarily ease hiring troubles, testimony at the first meeting of the Senate Study Committee on Expanding Georgia’s Workforce revealed.
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The Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP) has released a statement expressing frustration with the Fulton County Board of Commissioners after the group recently failed to confirm the second of two nominees to the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Election (BRE).
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The Georgia Republican Party (GAGOP) has released a statement renewing its call to “support voter confidence for all Georgians in our elections” following an expert report evaluating the security of Georgia’s voting equipment.
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Atlanta city leaders have signed off on the largest budget in the city’s history.
The $790 million fiscal 2024 general fund budget is a nearly 4.8% increase from the city’s $754.2 million adopted fiscal 2023 budget and a more than 7.8% increase from the nearly $732.7 million in fiscal 2022 expenditures.
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