RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/attorney-general-merrick-garland-announces-lawsuit-against-georgia-over-its-voting-law/

The Justice Department is suing the state of Georgia over its voting law, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Civil Rights division chief Kristen Clarke announced Friday, arguing that the state is violating federal law by inhibiting voting rights on the basis of race.

“Recent changes to Georgia’s election laws were enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of their race or color, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” Garland said Friday at the Justice Department.

Garland, flanked by other department leaders, including Clarke, Deputy Attorney General Monaco, and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, told reporters that the lawsuit “is the first of many steps we are taking to ensure that all eligible voters can cast a vote, that all lawful votes are counted and that every voter has access to accurate information.”

Georgia’s new election law, signed by GOP Governor Brian Kemp in March, outraged Democrats and voting rights groups with voter ID provisions and changes to mail-in voting that they say will make it more difficult for minorities and poorer voters to cast their ballots. While it adds new restrictions to absentee voting, the law also expands early voting opportunities, formalizing provisions that accommodated voters during the pandemic. It also codifies the use of drop boxes with strict rules on how they can be used and sets new rules for state and local election officials.

Kemp responded to the announcement via Twitter, saying, “This lawsuit is born out of the lies and misinformation the Biden administration has pushed against Georgia’s Election Integrity Act from the start. Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams, and their allies tried to force an unconstitutional elections power grab through Congress – and failed.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger responded similarly, adding, “It is no surprise that they would operationalize their lies with the full force of the federal government. I look forward to meeting them, and beating them, in court.”

In tandem with the announcement, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco issued a new memo Friday, directing the FBI and federal prosecutors across the country to identify, investigate and prosecute threats against election officials and poll workers, and announced the creation of a task force to address the spike in threats.

“A threat to any election official, worker, or volunteer is, at bottom, a threat to democracy,” Monaco said in the memo. “We will promptly and vigorously prosecute offenders to protect the rights of American voters, to punish those who engage in this criminal behavior, and to send the unmistakable message that such conduct will not be tolerated.”

“Several studies show that Georgia experienced record voter turnout and participation rates in the 2020 election cycle. Approximately two-thirds of eligible voters in the state cast a ballot in the November election, just over the national average. This is cause for celebration,” Garland said. “But then in March of 2021, Georgia’s legislature passed SB 202. Many of that law’s provisions make it harder for people to vote.”

“Laws adopted with a racially motivated purpose, like Georgia Senate Bill 202, simply have no place in democracy today,” Clarke said. She highlighted the prohibition on groups that are no longer allowed to hand out food and water to voters in order to make their wait in long lines at polling places more comfortable on election day. Clarke called that particular ban “needless” and alleged it proved “unlawful discriminatory intent.”

Garland’s announcement was expected, even if its timing was not. Two weeks ago, he delivered a speech promising to expand the Justice Department’s efforts to protect voting rights in response to the weakening of the federal Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2013. He said then that the department would confront state and local efforts that “will make it harder to vote,” and examine election laws “to determine whether they discriminate against Black voters and other voters of color.”  

On Friday, Garland called on Congress to enact legislation, which the House is currently working on with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, or H.R. 4, although it has yet to be introduced. The bill would restore Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a key provision that was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/23/the-party-of-science-cant-do-math/

The Democrats can pretend to be the “party of science” but one thing is for sure: they are definitely not the party of math.

The 2020 election has been and likely will continue to be a point of great contention among Americans in all 50 states. Even as a young American born during the Clinton Administration, I’ve noticed a skyrocketing spike in partisan strife between ordinary Americans. 

In the past few years alone, we’ve watched the media become ever more vicious, the politicians markedly more brazen, and the political ruling class dangerously more corrupt.

We are told to believe that Joe Biden received 81 million votes—the most in history—while winning only 509 counties across the country—the fewest in history.

Millions of Americans not only have concerns about election integrity but have also developed the conviction that America is no longer governed “by the people” and instead is governed by political power brokers.

We are told to believe that for only the second time since 1952, and that for the first time in nearly 25 years, a Democratic candidate for president won Arizona and did so by a margin of roughly 10,000 votes statewide.

In response, a small group of courageous leaders in the Arizona State Senate did the responsible thing: they asked for an independent forensic audit of their own election to ensure that this apparent, sudden, and drastic change was actually one called for by the people of Arizona. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democrats-get-an-anti-leftist-wake-up-call-from-new-york/

President Biden gave a speech this afternoon on the rising crime rate. Even the White House admits that in recent months “homicides rose 30 percent and gun assaults rose 8 percent in large cities.”

The timing is politically significant given the results of Tuesday’s New York City mayor’s primary. Crime and the Loony Left’s agenda were dominant issues.

Brooklyn Borough president Eric Adams, who spent 22 years as a cop, currently has a ten-point lead in the Democratic primary. Outstanding absentee ballots and NYC’s bizarre ranked-choice voting system will delay a final count until mid July. But Adams is the prohibitive favorite to win. Nathaniel Rakich at FiveThirtyEight says that Adams can start “measuring the drapes” at City Hall.

If he wins, it will be because he ran full tilt against defunding the police.

Starting in 1994, smarter policing under Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg made New York the safest big city in America. Those gains eroded under Mayor Bill de Blasio and accelerated last year with his weak response to riots, the elimination of bail, and the demonizing of the NYPD.

Adams ran full tilt against the leftist agenda of Wiley, a de Blasio appointee who is now in second place in the vote count.  He attacked her for wanting to slash NYPD’s budget and being open to the idea of taking their guns away.

He also called for lifting the cap on charter schools so the half of New York City students who fail basic proficiency tests would have a chance at a better education. He vowed to make better use of a law to get the mentally ill homeless to take the medications they need. He clashed with Governor Andrew Cuomo over how fast to end the city’s lockdown and get people back to work.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/06/23/suddenly-democrats-express-support-for-voter-id-laws-n1456545

Democrats have used voter ID laws to hammer Republicans for their supposed racism in supporting this simple voting integrity measure. In some campaigns, such as the Georgia governor’s race of 2018, Democratic hysterical opposition to voter ID led to a media frenzy about the “suppression” of the black vote.

It was never anything of the sort, of course. And as proof, try this on for size: National Democrats who skewered the GOP for passing voter ID laws now say it’s fine. Some, like Georgia’s Stacey Abrams (who wept about “suppression” of the black vote), now claim it’s simple common sense.

Washington Examiner:

In 2018, Georgia’s wannabe governor, Stacey Abrams, said voter ID laws are intended to “scare people out of voting.” Now, she audaciously says, “No one has ever objected to having to prove who you are to vote. It’s been part of our nation’s history since the inception of voting.”

Recently elected Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock is even more brazen in lying about opposing voter ID laws.

For years, then-Pastor Raphael Warnock, now a senator from Georgia, claimed ID laws were a form of “voter suppression” so “unnecessary and unjustifiable” that they amount to “dismember[ing]” Martin Luther King Jr.

Now he lies, “I have never been opposed to voter ID. And in fact, I don’t know anybody who is.”

The sudden reversal is because swing Democrat Joe Manchin agreed to support a compromise in the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that included voter ID.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/06/23/buffalo-elects-socialist-mayor-while-ny-city-could-very-well-elect-a-law-and-order-democrat-n1456483

Buffalo, the second-largest city in New York, elected a woman, a political novice, and a socialist as mayor on Tuesday night. India Walton defeated 4-term incumbent Mayor Byron Brown by 1500 votes.

It was a shocking result — if you hadn’t been paying attention the last 4 years. Brown, a former state Democratic Party chair and a charter member of the New York political establishment, lost to a socialist because the socialist wasn’t part of the establishment. If that’s too complicated for you, look at the mayoral results in New York City.

Eric Adams is holding a lead at the moment. In fact, no one knows what’s going on with this “ranked voting” that’s confusing everyone. Indeed, the purpose of rank voting appears to be designed to make the result of the election as muddled as possible.

Not a bug. A feature.

Adams leads by a small plurality. The race will almost certainly be decided by voters’ second, third, fourth, and fifth choices. Adams may be the first choice of a plurality of voters, but with so many candidates in the race, he may end up not winning anything.

But Adams, a former Republican, supports funding for more police. His campaign platform reads, “If we are for SAFETY — we NEED the NYPD!”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/19/is-pennsylvania-on-the-verge-of-forensic-election-audit-n1455822

Pennsylvania state Senator Dave Argall, who chairs the committee in charge of overseeing elections, told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star that a forensic audit was a “very real possibility.”

“There are a lot of things under consideration right now, and I told them to check back in a week or two and we hope to have some more detail,” Argall said regarding a meeting he had with activists who support the audit on Wednesday.

President Trump called out Argall and other state senators by name in a statement earlier this week. “Why is State Senator Jake Corman of Pennsylvania fighting so hard that there not be a Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam?” Trump asked in a statement. “Corman is fighting as though he were a Radical Left Democrat, saying that a Forensic Audit of Pennsylvania not take place. Why is Senator David Argall playing the same game? Are they stupid, corrupt, or naive? What is going on?”

“Other State Senators want this Forensic Audit to take place—immediately,” Trump continued. “I feel certain that if Corman continues along this path of resistance, with its lack of transparency, he will be primaried and lose by big numbers. What went on in Philadelphia and other areas of the State must be properly and legally exposed. If it is not, just like with open Borders, we won’t have a Country anymore!”

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/06/18/georgias_election_reform_makes_it_easy_to_vote_and_hard_to_cheat_781903.html

Regardless of one’s political affiliation, it’s not difficult to find voters in Georgia who were discouraged by the messiness of the 2020 election process.

It’s one thing to be disappointed by the outcome. It’s entirely another to feel disenfranchised and frustrated by questions and uncertainties surrounding absentee ballot handling, unsecured drop boxes, and questionable third-party funding of local elections.

In evaluating federal, state, and local voting safeguards, these and other serious complications — glitches, missing votes, even water pipe breakages at polling locations or ballot drop boxes — raised legitimate concerns and weakened voter confidence in Georgia’s election integrity.

Such concerns ultimately weaken voter confidence and decrease participation in elections regardless of political persuasion and prompted Georgia lawmakers to modernize voting laws to make it easier to vote and harder to interfere with Georgia’s elections. 

As expected, a few partisan individuals and groups rushed to label Georgia’s new election reform law, the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2021, (SB202) as an act of voter suppression. However, their claims are simply not true: reforms introduced in this legislation expand voting access for all Georgia voters while enhancing the security of the process.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/18/georgia-sec-of-state-brad-raffenspergers-own-election-monitor-details-serious-election-integrity-issues-in-newly-released-memo/

A contractor handpicked by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to monitor election counting in Fulton County submitted a report back in November outlining the “massive” election integrity failures he witnessed in Atlanta-area election centers.

Incredibly, even after receiving the explosive 29-page memo describing repeated mistakes, and possible fraud in Fulton County,” Raffensperger continued to insist in public that Georgia had “safe, secure, honest elections.”

Just the News’ John Solomon obtained the memo from the contractor, Carter Jones, a consultant for Seven Hill Strategies. The report is written like a minute-by-minute diary detailing everything Jones witnessed from Nov. 2 to Nov. 7, 2020.

As Solomon notes, the report includes serious voter integrity issues, such as “the double-counting of votes, insecure storage of ballots, possible violations of voter privacy, the mysterious removal of election materials at a vote collection warehouse, and the suspicious movement of ‘too many’ ballots on Election Day.”

In one notation written around 4:00 p.m. on Election Day, for instance, Jones warns of what “seems like a massive chain of custody problem,” after observing absentee ballots arriving at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena “in rolling bins 2k at a time.”

“It is my understanding is that the ballots are supposed to be moved in numbered, sealed boxes to protect them,” he wrote, pointing out that these ballots weren’t.

Jones expressed concern over the sheer volume of absentee ballots flowing in. “Too many ballots coming in for secure black ballot boxes,” he wrote.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/georgia-audit-documents-show-unsecured-missing-ballot-batches-ballots

Documents that Georgia’s largest county submitted to state officials as part of a post-election audit highlight significant irregularities in the Atlanta area during last November’s voting, ranging from identical vote tallies repeated multiple times to large batches of absentee ballots that appear to be missing from the official ballot-scanning records.

The problems in predominantly Democratic Fulton County potentially impact thousands of ballots in a presidential race that Joe Biden was certified as winning statewide by fewer than 12,000 votes.

The memos reviewed by Just the News include the handwritten tally sheets for all absentee ballots counted by the county as well as a private report from a contractor hired by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to monitor the Atlanta-area election process. The report, which chronicled seven days of problems, recorded troubling behavior like the mysterious removal of a suitcase of sensitive election data known as polls pads, used to authenticate voters.

“Learn that Rick reprogramming poll pads earlier was setting up a new precinct for SC11 because someone took the wrong suitcase but only took one,” the contractor Seven Hills Strategy wrote late on Nov. 2, the night before Election Day. “Seems to be a mystery who this person was –> Should have chain of custody paperwork!! That means that a stranger just walked out with sensitive election materials?”

The contractor also observed that sensitive election materials were left on a dock at a warehouse without supervision. “Several cases (including SC11) were just left out on the loading dock outside the warehouse,” he wrote. “Thankfully the seals were intact.”

The revelations come as a state judge has taken the extraordinary step of ordering absentee ballots in the county unsealed so that a private audit led by lawyer Bob Cheeley can examine the actual papers and resolve discrepancies. Cheeley told Just the News on Wednesday the evidence he has seen so far points to “election tabulation malpractice.”

Private experts and state election officials differ on whether the evidence shows a pattern of potential fraud or simply gross incompetence in the county that encompasses Atlanta.

But they are mostly united for the first time that the top election supervisors in Fulton County should be removed. Some officials are even discussing a dramatic intervention like putting the county’s election system in conservatorship so it can be run by state, not local, officials.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/stacey-abrams-endorses-manchins-election-law-compromise/

Democrat Stacey Abrams on Thursday endorsed Senator Joe Manchin’s voting legislation compromise, including a provision that requires a form of voter identification, ahead of a key vote next week.

On Wednesday, Manchin unveiled a list of voting and campaign finance changes that he would support, raising the possibility of a compromise on his party’s “For the People Act.”

Manchin has argued that the For the People Act as it stands is too partisan.

During an appearance on CNN on Thursday, Abrams said she could “absolutely” support Manchin’s proposal.

“’What Senator Manchin is putting forward are some basic building blocks that we need to ensure that democracy is accessible no matter your geography,” said Abrams, who ran an unsuccessful bid for Georgia governor in 2018. “And those provisions that he is setting forth are strong ones that will create a level playing field, will create standards that do not vary from state to state and I think will ensure that every American has improved access to the right to vote despite the onslaught of state legislation seeking to restrict the access to vote.”

Manchin’s proposal includes changes to both the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: he has suggested making Election Day a public holiday, offering 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections, and allowing automatic voter registration through state departments of motor vehicles.

The moderate Democrat also supports requiring voter identification but allowing alternatives such as utility bills to serve as proof of identity.