By Jill Nolin | Editor
We have a new column from opinion writer Jay Bookman today and a report from our friends at the Current about a Democratic state House candidate accused of voting illegally.
But I also want to flag a story from our DC Bureau about a viral failed “gotcha” moment that happened yesterday when a U.S. senator mistakenly accused former special counsel Jack Smith of being at an Atlanta Hawks game around the time Fulton County DA Fani Willis admitted to having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor in the election interference case. Apparently, Smith is more of a Caitlin Clark fan.
FBI agents were spotted loading boxes of election documents onto trucks at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City on Jan. 28, 2026. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
COMMENTARY
By Jay Bookman
Nine months ago this week, FBI agents raided the Fulton County elections office, seizing hundreds of boxes of ballots cast in the 2020 election.
According to the subpoena authorizing that seizure, federal officials had “probable cause to believe” that Fulton officials had “knowingly and willfully deprived” the people of Georgia of a “fair and impartially conducted election process” in 2020, just as President Trump had claimed.
Conservatives celebrated the news, certain that the truth – their truth – would now be confirmed. “Georgians have waited years for real answers about what happened in 2020,” as Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon put it.
Then six months passed. Nothing.
David Dillie addresses 300 people gathered outside the Effingham College & Career Academy to protest the proposed OpenAI data center in Rincon on July 23, 2026. Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current GA/CatchLight/Report for America
ELECTION 2026
By Margaret Coker, The Current
Georgia’s secretary of state is investigating allegations that David Dillie, a Democratic candidate for state House District 161, may have voted in two state primaries this year in a violation of state law.
Dillie, a 24-year-old mechanic for Gulfstream who lives near Pooler Parkway, has denied the accusation, that he voted in both Georgia’s May primary and a month later in a primary in Nevada. Dillie lived in Nevada before returning to Coastal Georgia in 2024.
Dillie, a third-generation Georgian, blamed youth and inexperience for the potential legal trouble. Under Georgia law, double-voting is a felony punishable with imprisonment and fine.
Advocates from each side of the abortion issue have pushed for Congress to either codify the Hyde Amendment into law or codify its repeal, but neither side has been successful. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris, Stateline
In the early months of 2022, Democrats in Congress came close to passing an appropriations bill that did not include a provision barring federal funding for abortions — maybe the closest it had ever come in more than 40 years.
But those who wanted the Hyde Amendment included won the battle in the end. Three months later, the U.S. Supreme Court made its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health to allow states to regulate abortion access. That year, the 50-year precedent of a constitutional right to abortion ended, and the 50-year precedent of no federal tax funding to pay for abortions endures.
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