19 Comments

Informative post. I could have done without you defending Trump for inciting the Jan 6 insurrection and defending the insurrectionist. Glad to see you speak against the water in line thing. Wasn’t there also some other precisely targeted content toward Sunday morning voting hours?

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In Texas the signature on the application to receive a ballot-by-mail must match the signature that is on the envelope containing the ballot that was submitted. Those examining the signatures, a Democrat and a Republican, must agree that the signatures match for the ballot to be counted. If both agree that the signatures do not match or if there is disagreement on whether they match, the signatures are reviewed by the entire ballot committee. The committee can go back as far as six years of signatures on legal documents, etc. to help determine if there was any hanky-panky.

Every step of the process is posted on the voter's information page, including when the application was received, when the ballot was mailed out, when the ballot was returned, and when the signatures were approved. Other security measures are in place concerning ballot-by-mail.

There are laws in place that allow ballots to be returned after election day under certain circumstances for both overseas and domestic voters.

Separate audits are done of the mail-in ballots, election day ballots, and provisional ballots.

The legislature is currently looking at voter integrity issues, so all this could change. I am concerned about knee-jerk reactions to real or imagined issues.

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There was no fraud in the Georgia elections........so why is this law even needed??

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“S tate Rep. Park Cannon, a Democrat in the state legislature began to try to interfere with the governor's ability to sign the law last night and people on the left are hailing her as some sort of hero for trying to disrupt the lawful process of government. The same people hailing her as a hero were upset about the people storming the Capitol to try to stop the electoral college votes from being counted. It is the exact same thing. What you are seeing is the hypocrisy of the Democrats and the media who are fine when the left believes crazy conspiracy theories and upset when other people don't.”

If what Cannon did was the “exact same thing” as the storming the capitol, then should we advocate shooting Cannon similar to advocating shooting the Capitol protestors?

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sadly, it will work.

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Thanks for the explanation. Not sure everybody is running to the republican party though. I left the republican party and need more tolerance and thought provoking leadership from people like you to go back. For now call me independent

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So will the Trump Mob now call a truce in their insane war against Brian Kemp? I doubt it.

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Dang it, hit post too soon, wish I could edit.

Anyway, I believe the new law allows for self-serve water stations to be set up by election workers (not Easter stations 😅).

Partisan groups offering food or snacks seems inappropriate.

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Thanks for this important perspective, Erick. Two things; do you have a link for the UGA study? Also, my understanding of the new law is it allows election managers to set up self-serve Easter stations

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I couldn't get beyond the 2 tweets at the top. Their lying is getting worse. It is beyond rediculous.

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Thank you for this very reasonable explanation of the new law. I cannot tell you, as a Republican, how it put my mind at ease. What I fail to understand is Gov. Kemp’s communications staff. So much alarm could have been prevented with “front loading” weeks ago, these sound benefits you’ve laid out. And especially the Park Cannon episode last night—looked bad! Couldn’t he sign it/give comments in public? Same with opening up businesses early last spring during Covid. Kemp really helped businesses come back in very safe ways early, but the communications upfront was lacking about all the safety procedures up front. Can’t we as Georgians preempt some of unnecessary bad press we get nationally with proactive communications?

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From what I had seen of the law, I thought it sounded like something all states should be doing. And after reading your description I am sure that is true. I am going to print out your article both to use to explain the law to other people and to compare to how elections are handled in my state. Though we don't have the run off situation here. The only reason to oppose this law is because it tightens up the holes that would allow cheating and sloppiness and incompetency.

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Manufactured outrage by the left. We know the MSM gets paid for clicks, not facts, so anything to garner a click suffices in their world. Sadly, people are no longer concerned about protecting the rights of individual voters and the process / vulnerabilities in that process, they are concerned about the outcome, especially an ability to find a crack or gap to influence that outcome.

Voting is a privilege as well as a right. Voters are (ostensibly) adults 18 years or older, so have adult responsibilities like voting to take personal responsibility for. Instead, we regress to the age-old oppressed/oppressor model like somehow the oppressed have no recourse, no ability to exercise the right to vote. Unfortunately, mankind (personkind?) has proven up to the task of finding and taking advantage of loopholes, impacting the process, influencing the outcome. Every time a new, clever way someone comes up with to cheat, a new rule has to be implemented to prevent or close that loophole.

This is not about losing voter rights, this is about tightening gaps through which dead people, multi-location residents, unregistered voters, illegal immigrants, etc. sneak to influence elections.

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Erick I agree with you completely but if we are totally honest the Republicans did give them a filament of fact to spin their cotton candy around. Attacking things like "Souls to the Polls" efforts on Sunday voting were worse than a crime, they were a blunder. Nothing is more likely to generate funds and enthusiasm for the other side far in excess of any partisan advantage we get from this bill than the talking points our side provided.

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Thanks Erick! What about ballot harvesting? What’s going on in the Senate on the H.R. 1 bill?

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Remember when Trump said the media are the enemy of the people, and the chattering class went nuts? He was right.

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