By Jill Nolin | Editor
There may be less than two weeks before early voting starts here in Georgia, but that isn’t stopping the State Election Board from pursuing changes to the state’s election system that are intended to apply to this year’s midterms. We reported earlier this week that the board tasked its executive director with reaching out to the U.S. Department of Justice to help push for updates to the voting system. Now we know that the director sent a letter Wednesday formally requesting federal government “intervention.”
State Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs, a top Georgia GOP official who was appointed to the board last year, speaks during a February board meeting held in Barrow County. Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder
VOTING
By Maya Homan
A last-minute proposal that would have required poll workers to manually “shuffle” ballots before scanning them in an effort to prevent bad actors from identifying how Georgia residents voted failed to advance Thursday at a special-called meeting of the State Election Board.
Election workers and advocates said the proposed rule would be impossible to implement before the November midterms and would likely create more problems than it solved.
State Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs, a top Georgia GOP official who was appointed to the board last year, argued that emergency rules were needed to uphold Georgia’s constitutionally required ballot secrecy rules.
Her proposal would require voters to place their completed ballots into “secure boxes” rather than ballot scanners, which voters use to submit their printed ballot. Under Grubbs’ proposal, ballots would later be scanned by poll workers rather than the voters themselves.
An election worker in Gwinnett County demonstrates how to insert a voter card into ballot-marking devices used by voters across Georgia. Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder
VOTING
By Maya Homan
Members of Georgia’s State Election Board have advanced a resolution calling on the secretary of state’s office to update the state’s voting machines and urging the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to step in to ensure the update takes place.
The resolution was introduced by the board’s GOP appointee, Carolyn Roddy and cited a Sept. 2 letter from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche which said QR code-based voting systems may potentially violate the federal Help America Vote Act. It passed in a 3-2 vote Monday, roughly two weeks before Georgia residents begin heading to the polls for early voting.
On Wednesday, the board’s executive director James Mills wrote a letter to Blanche requesting federal “intervention” and urging the attorney general to open an investigation into the secretary of state’s office and require them to install updated software ahead of the midterm elections.
Officials have extended Georgia’s annual oyster season closure because the water is warm, raising the risk of dangerous bacteria. (Caila Brown)
CLIMATE
By Emily Jones, WABE/Grist
Georgia is extending the annual closure of the oyster harvest season because of unusually warm ocean temperatures. Officials say the closure, which usually ends September 30, will continue until the water is safe for wild oysters.
It’s common knowledge in coastal areas: avoid raw oysters in the summer because warm water lets dangerous bacteria flourish. Georgia shuts down wild oyster harvesting from June through September every year to keep people safe. But this year, for just the second time, the state is extending the closure because the water is still too warm.
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