Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for August 31, 2020

On August 31, 1864, Confederates charged Union forces at the Battle of Jonesboro, in which the CSA suffered more than 1400 casualties in one hour.

On August 31, 1955, the first solar powered car was demonstrated by William Cobb of General Motors.

On August 31, 1965, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation creating the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which the Senate had previously passed.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Governor Brian Kemp will make an economic development announcement on Tuesday at Amazon’s Gwinnett fulfillment center, according to a press release.

Governor Kemp will join U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler on the campaign trail, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.

U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to the seat in January following Isakson’s retirement, launched a second statewide tour set to feature Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

She held a campaign rally in Marietta Friday with Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and Cobb County District Attorney Joyette Holmes. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., joined her for a private event earlier in the day, campaign staff said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, campaigned in Alpharetta and Gainesville Friday with 6th Congressional District Republican nominee Karen Handel, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell and former Georgia First Lady Sandra Deal.

Former Gov. Nathan Deal attended the rally in Gainesville but did not make a formal endorsement of Collins.

Senate District 50 votes will be recounted today, according to AccessWDUN.

Elections officials on Monday will recount the votes cast in the runoff between Bo Hatchett and Stacy Hall.

Hatchett, a Demorest attorney, won the runoff against Hall, the Habersham County Commission chairman, but only a handful of votes separated the two men. Hall requested the recount earlier this month.

“This has been a very long election for everyone and I have no desire to drag it out, but with only 40 votes separating us out of nearly 25,000, I think a recount is wise so we can move forward confidently,” Hall said in a statement at the time. “I appreciate the patience of everyone in the district as we work to ensure confidence in the final results.”

District 50 is made up of all or part of the following counties: Banks, Franklin, Habersham, Hall, Jackson, Rabun, Stephens and Towns.

The Trump Armada launched across Georgia, including the Augusta area and Lake Allatoona.

Mark McKinnon, a public affairs officer with the state Department of Natural Resources, said Friday that he expected about 1,000 people to attend the Trump Boat Parade at Clarks Hill Lake outside of Augusta, while another 500 people were expected at the Trump and America Boat Parade at Lake Allatoona near Acworth.

The boat parades saluting Trump have been held throughout the summer, with others in Georgia including Walter F. George Lake (Lake Eufala) south of Columbus and Lake Blackshear between Americus and Cordele.

I know there was a Trump armada event at Lake Chatuge when I was there week before last.

The Chatham County elections board is expanding voting opportunities ahead of November’s general election, according to the Savannah Morning News.

The Chatham County Board of Registrars is hoping to make it easier than ever for residents to cast their votes ahead of the Nov. 3 general election with the opening of five early in-person voting satellite offices around the county in addition to the main office on Eisenhower Drive.

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office on Friday added new options by launching a portal that allows voters to request absentee ballots online, eliminating the need for a paper ballot request form.

Voters can start casting their votes during the early voting period, which runs from Oct. 12 through 30. For the first time in Chatham County, Saturday and Sunday early voting will be held for two consecutive weekends, Oct. 17-18 and Oct. 24-25.

Long County may have seen voting irregularities, according to the AJC.

Seven people were able to vote twice in the June 9 election for Long County probate judge, said Jake Evans, an attorney for the incumbent. Some of them submitted absentee ballots and then voted in person; others voted in person twice, he said.

“It was a complete breakdown,” Evans said Friday. “It’s a crazy story. I don’t even know how it happened. I didn’t even think double-voting was possible.”

Probate Judge Bobby Harrison Smith is asking a judge to order an election after he appeared to lose by nine votes to challenger Teresa Odum. The vote count was 1,375-1,366.

Election officials accepted at least nine votes from people who no longer live in the southeast Georgia county, and they turned away people who were incorrectly told they had already voted, according to Smith’s lawsuit.

In addition, election officials mailed ballots to voters who never signed absentee ballot request forms as required to verify their identities, Evans said. Sixteen additional votes were found when conducting a recount.

Savannah Alderwoman Kesha Gibson-Carter claimed pedophiles work in city government and an ethics charge has been filed against her, according to the Savannah Morning News.

Gibson-Carter can be heard in a Facebook video of her speech telling the audience, “There are pedophiles under this gold dome.”

“That speech she (Gibson-Carter) gave talked about the human/child trafficking issues, and (she) even pointed towards City Hall saying ‘There are pedos under that gold dome!’” Skaggs wrote in the email. “That speech, along with the huge social media movement regarding (Save The Children), motivated me to go out of my way to chalk city hall with messages calling out the possible pedophilia occurring” there.

The Savannah Police Department investigation into the incident included an interview between Police Chief Roy Minter and Gibson-Carter. Minter said he reached out to Gibson-Carter to inquiry about the seriousness of the pedophilia allegations to assess whether investigation of those working at City Hall was needed.

Gibson-Carter told Minter she had no evidence of pedophilia by anyone at City Hall, according to the police chief.

And an ethics charge has been filed against Gibson-Carter by a fellow Council member, according to the Savannah Morning News.

Dougherty County‘s justice system faces a backlog from the pandemic, according to the Albany Herald.

[W]ith the court system at a halt since mid-March, court proceedings in those and all other criminal cases have come to a standstill in terms of moving on to trials. Courts were re-opened on a limited basis in June, but safety issues related to the coronavirus have prevented seating juries and holding trials.

The current order from the Georgia Supreme Court, renewed several times since the initial order was issued, prohibits the convening of grand juries and trial juries.

“There are a total of 78 persons facing murder charges,” Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards said this week. “Of those 78 cases, four of them are death penalty cases.

“If we were able to go to trial, we have 22 people ready to go to trial” in cases that do not involve the death penalty, Edwards said. “The Supreme Court is trying to balance these cases moving forward and the safety issues of convening a jury. Our legal system just did not anticipate social distancing and wearing a mask. We really have to make some decisions.”

Augusta area courts will also have a backlog to clear, according to the Augusta Chronicle.

While jury trials are nixed under an emergency order by the Georgia Supreme Court’s chief justice, nearly 600 Richmond County Superior Court criminal cases have been disposed of so far this year.

That leaves 1,940 pending, but that’s less than the massive backlogs seen in the Augusta Judicial Circuit in the 1990s when judges shunned case assignment and courtrooms were scarce.

Area attorney Greg Leopard, whose practice includes criminal defense work, said being able to talk privately, face to face with jailed clients is a huge game changer, but he warned that defense attorneys have six months’ worth of conversations stacked up.

District Attorney Natalie Paine said she and the assistant district attorneys understand defense attorneys aren’t going to be ready to sprint when normal court proceedings resume. But they are ready for when the defense is, Paine said.

The case slowdown has been good in some respects, Paine said. Each prosecutor has created a top-15 list of major cases and those in which speedy-trial demands have been made.

“They’re ready right now,” Paine said.

Georgia’s tourism industry is beginning to improve, according to the Albany Herald.

Hotel room occupancy across the state plummeted by 62%. More than 187,000 leisure and hospitality jobs went away in March and April, and the state lost more than $3 billion in travel spending from mid-April through mid-May.

The damage was even more severe in Savannah, where hotel occupancy in the city’s historic district sank to just 9% in April. Savannah was forced to cancel its world-renowned St. Patrick’s Day celebration and the annual Savannah Music Festival.

In Chatham County, 91% of the unemployment claims filed during the pandemic’s early days came from hospitality workers, said Joe Marinelli, president of Visit Savannah, which runs the city’s tourist information center.

But gradually, there have been signs of business starting to pick back up, spurred by the proactive efforts of state and local tourism promotion agencies to get visitors back.

In fact, the months of June and July saw year-over-year visitation records in Helen, a former logging community in the North Georgia mountains that resurrected itself decades ago to look like a Bavarian village.

The Fourteenth Congressional District Georgia Republican Party held a unity event, according to the Rome News-Tribune.

The event, held at the Coosa Vally Fairgrounds, saw county party representatives from all around the district, including Walker County and Paulding County, come together with other conservative organizations, such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and the President’s Team, to look forward to the November election. Many of the groups had their own booths selling hats, t-shirts and other merchandise with President Donald Trump’s signature mottos “Make America great again” and “Keep America great.”

Some of the speakers included Georgia House representatives Katie Dempsey and Eddie Lumsden, Trump campaign regional director Tyler Burns, Georgia State District 54 Senator Chuck Payne and U.S. House District 14 Republican candidate Marjorie Greene.

“The Democrats talk about hope a lot… but the Republican party is the party of hope,” Payne said. “We can have our differences in primaries, but at the end of the day we have got to be focused on our hope for the future.”

Bulloch County public schools report 350 quarantined teachers, students, and staff, according to the Statesboro Herald.

By 6 p.m. Friday, the tenth class day of the school year, the Bulloch County Schools district reported that 350 people, including students and employees, had gone into quarantine as a result of 28 known positive cases of COVID-19.

These confirmed cases and precautionary quarantines have occurred in connection with 12 of the 15 schools, as well as with the school system central office or its support services annex, one after-school program and the Cedarwood center. Actually, just nine of the schools had confirmed cases, but three additional schools had students, staff or faculty members in quarantine, apparently as a result of contacts elsewhere.

Georgia College students and workers in Milledgeville staged a “die in” after more than 530 COVID-19 cases were reported, according to the Macon Telegraph.

Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville has reported 535 confirmed COVID-19 cases since June 18 and 253 cases this week. With fewer than 8,000 students, that gives Georgia College one of the worst college case rates in the country.

The Georgia College Chapter of United Campus Workers of Georgia organized a “die-in” Friday morning at the campus to protest what some students, employees and parents said was poor planning by university leadership.

“We do not feel like we’re being protected here on campus,” Georgia College graduate student and graduate assistant Denechia Powell said. “We want more online options for students and faculty and staff so we’re not put in harm’s way. We also want there to be sufficient, timely and free COVID-19 testing. We need adequate contact tracing.”

The Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Office announced that thousands of pieces of stolen mail have been recovered, according to the Gainesville Times.