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Washington — A federal judge in Georgia on Thursday approved a congressional map redrawn by the state's GOP-led legislature after its original voting lines were found to be crafted in violation of federal voting rights law. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones said in a 15-page order that the General Assembly "fully complied" with his October order that required the creation of a majority-Black congressional district in the western part of metro Atlanta. His acceptance of the new map, which maintains Republicans' 9-5 edge for its congressional delegation, sets up the new bounds to be used in the 2024 election. Jones...

ATLANTA – Georgia Democrats scored minimal gains in the General Assembly in last year’s elections – and even lost one congressional seat – despite population growth during the last decade among Blacks, who tend to vote for Democrats. But Democratic prospects likely will look a lot better after lawmakers gather under the Gold Dome for a special session starting Wednesday and redraw the state’s legislative and congressional lines on the orders of a federal judge appointed by then-President Barack Obama. “(Republican incumbents are) either going to end up in districts highly likely to elect a Democrat or in a district...

Democrat-appointed judge ordered Republican legislature to create one new black-majority congressional district and seven such districts for state elections. Judge Jones said if the legislature fails to act, he would carry out the map-drawing process himself.

ATLANTA — A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Georgia’s redrawn congressional maps violate a section of the Voting Rights Act. The Georgia General Assembly approved the maps back in 2021 and were signed by Gov. Brian Kemp. The maps shifted the Republican edge from 8-6 to 9-5. A series of lawsuits were filed against the state of Georgia arguing that the redrawn maps illegally discriminate against minorities and take away their voting power. Governor Brian Kemp issued a proclamation on Thursday afternoon calling for a special session of the Georgia General Assembly on Nov. 29 to revisit laws relating...

A federal judge in Georgia has declined to block several provisions of a sweeping election law while multiple legal challenges play out.Several left-wing advocacy and civil rights groups, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ, sued in 2021 after Republican state lawmakers passed the measure amid claims about election fraud in the state in 2020. Those lawsuits claim that black voters are now denied equal access to voting, which violates the Voting Rights Act.“Plaintiffs have not shown, at least at this stage of the proceedings, that any of the provisions have a disparate impact on black voters,” U.S....

A federal judge has ordered a second evidentiary hearing for removal of the Fulton County case against former President Donald Trump and 18 others over violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in their challenge of the 2020 election results. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting the case, claimed the actions constituted a "criminal racketeering enterprise" and gave the 19 defendants until noon on Aug. 25 to surrender or face arrest. All defendants surrendered before the deadline. Jeffrey Clark, former Justice Department (DOJ) official, filed a notice of removal on Aug. 21, requesting that his...

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones denied requests made by Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark to avoid arrest in Fulton County while their requests to move the case to federal court are pending. Both Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark, both former federal officials, have been named as defendants in an indictment against former President Donald Trump and 16 others. Their actions in the former president's challenge of the Georgia election results have led to them being charged with violating the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges that their actions constituted a "criminal...

A federal judge delivered a decisive ruling Friday against allies of Democrat Stacey Abrams in their 4-year-old voting rights lawsuit, upholding Georgia election laws on all counts in the case filed by Fair Fight Action days after the 2018 election.

A federal appeals court ​on Sunday halted Sen. Lindsey Graham’s testimony before the grand jury investigating possible illegal efforts by allies of former President Donald Trump’s to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, acting on a request by the South Carolina Republican, temporarily blocked a decision by a federal judge in Atlanta that rejected Graham’s claim of congressional immunity and ordered him to appear before the special grand jury on Tuesday. ​ The three-panel appeals court returned the matter to ​US District Judge Leigh Martin May​ ​to decide whether the subpoena...

A federal judge in Georgia has rejected the effort by Sen. Lindsey Graham R-SC to avoid testifying before a special grand jury in Georgia, which is investigating Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

A federal judge on Monday ruled that a group of Georgia voters can proceed with legal efforts seeking to disqualify U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection to Congress, citing her role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The challenge filed with the Georgia secretary of state’s office alleges Greene, a Republican, helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. That violates a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment and makes her ineligible to run for reelection, according to the challenge. The amendment says no one...

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams cannot immediately begin raising and spending unlimited campaign contributions under a state law passed last year because she is not yet her party’s nominee, a federal judge ruled Thursday. Abrams and her One Georgia committee filed a lawsuit last month challenging the constitutionality of the new law, which allows certain top elected officials and party nominees to create “leadership committees” that can raise campaign funds without limits. But they also asked the judge to order the state ethics commission not to take any action against them if they continue to raise...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in a hearing in federal court on Friday, sought to quash a legal challenge that would bar her from running for another term in Congress. Federal Judge Amy Totenberg heard arguments from lawyers for Greene, a first-term member of Congress from northwest Georgia, and from voters in her district who want to block her from running for reelection. The lawsuit against Greene seeks to prevent her from appearing on future ballots because it alleges she violated the Constitution by encouraging and “facilitating” the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by supporters of former President...

A judge is withholding the release of an audit report of Dominion voting machines in Georgia. Now the federal government and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has inserted itself into the case and is asking the judge to delay the report longer.We reported on this case previously. Per our report a week ago:A federal judge is being urged to release a report that, despite the secrecy surrounding it, appears to indicate there are potential flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment used in Georgia.“The public deserves to know the context of J. Alex Halderman’s claims and his testimony...

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal cybersecurity agency says a report by an expert who says he’s identified security vulnerabilities in voting machines used by Georgia and other states shouldn’t be made public until it has had time to assess and mitigate potential risks. The report has been under seal since July in federal court in Atlanta, part of a long-running lawsuit challenging Georgia’s voting machines. Its author, J. Alex Halderman, said in sworn declarations filed publicly with the court that he examined the Dominion Voting Systems machines for 12 weeks and identified “multiple severe security flaws” that would allow bad...

A “leadership committee” created by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp under a new state law must stop spending money to get the governor reelected during the Republican primary, a federal judge ruled Monday. Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, who's challenging Kemp in the primary, last month filed a lawsuit challenging the new law. Perdue and his campaign allege that the law gives Kemp a significant and unfair fundraising and spending advantage in the primary and asked the judge to declare it unconstitutional. The law, passed by state legislators last year and signed by Kemp, allows certain top elected officials, including the...

Democrats like Joe Biden have demonized Georgia’s new election law, falsely calling it such things as “Jim Crow on steroids.” They so demonized the state with these comments that they caused Major League Baseball to move the All-Star Game to Colorado, costing the citizens of Georgia an estimated $100 million. That, of course, was nonsense and Democrats own the damage they did to Georgia because of that.However, that isn’t stopping the Democrats from trying to take aim at the law and do more damage. Leftist activists filed an action objecting to parts of the law for the upcoming election run-offs...

President Donald Trump's last-minute legal bid to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia was denied by a federal judge on Tuesday. Ruling from the bench, U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen rejected the president's request for an emergency injunction to order the state legislature to choose a new slate of electors before the mandated congressional count takes place on January 6. The lawsuit was filed by Trump on New Year's Eve and accused Georgia officials of violating the state's election code in the handling and counting of mail-in ballots. The lawsuit also alleged state leaders conducted an "improper certification of...

Federal Judge Steve C. Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, is set to decide whether some 200,000 people purged from the Georgia voter rolls in 2019 can be put back on, allowing them to cast a ballot in the January 5 runoff election for two Senate seats. The Law 360 website reported on the consequential case: U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones said at the end of a three-hour hearing Thursday that he’ll decide “pretty quickly” whether to grant a request by four multi-state voter and civil rights organizations to re-register the purged voters. Voter registration for Georgia’s senatorial runoffs, which...

GA law states that a runoff election is a continuation of a primary election; therefore only persons who voted in the primary can vote in the runoff less than a month from now. I contend that the knowledge exists to state the maximum number of votes possible in the coming runoff. All the Secty of State has to do is report the names of the voters from their vote history of who voted in the primary. From that list you delete the voters with address changes out-of-state. Clearly anyone recently registered is double-checked not to be on the runoff list...