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      Local Election Officials in Georgia Oppose G.O.P. Election Bill

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      As Republicans rush to pass a second round of new voting and election rules, a bipartisan group of election officials is fighting back.ATLANTA — A year ago, when Georgia Republicans passed a mammoth law of election measures and voting restrictions, many local election officials felt frustrated and sidelined, as their concerns about resources, ballot access and implementation went largely ignored.This year, Republicans have returned with a new bill — and the election officials are pushing back.A bipartisan coalition of county-level election administrators — the people who carry out the day-to-day work of running elections — is speaking out against the latest Republican measure. At a legislative hearing on Monday, they warned that the proposal would create additional burdens on a dwindling force of election workers and that the provisions could lead to more voter intimidation.“You’re going to waste time, and you’re going to cause me to lose poll workers,” said Joel Natt, a Republican member of the Forsyth County board of elections, referring to a provision in the bill that he said would force workers to count hundreds of blank sheets of paper. “I have 400 poll workers that work for our board. That is 400 people that I could see telling me after May, ‘Have a nice life,’ and it’s hard enough to keep them right now.”Among other provisions, the bill would expand the reach of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation over election crimes; limit private funding of elections; empower partisan poll watchers; and establish new requirements for tracking absentee ballots as they are verified and counted.The bill passed the Georgia House this month, roughly two weeks after it was first introduced. Initially, the State Senate appeared set to pass the measure at a similar speed. The state’s legislative session ends on April 4, giving lawmakers less than a week to pass the bill.But county-level election officials worked behind the scenes, in letters and phone calls to legislators, expressing their concerns about the bill and dissatisfaction that they had not been consulted in the drafting process.The pushback comes as the impact of the wave of election laws passed by Republicans last year is beginning to be felt. In Texas, where a new law altered the absentee ballot process, election officials dealt with widespread confusion among absentee voters in the March primary. Mail ballot rejections surged, and county officials worked around the clock to help voters fix their ballots. Still, more than 18,000 voters had their ballots tossed out.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.The vocal opposition from Georgia election officials represents a shift from a year ago, when some individual officials, mostly Democrats, spoke out against the first Republican bill. But many local officials simply felt ignored by lawmakers who were eager to appear to be addressing Republican voters’ false beliefs about fraud in the 2020 election.The statewide association of local election officials is now working to “start taking stances on legislation like this, where the association would have a view that represents a majority of our members,” said Joseph Kirk, the elections supervisor for Bartow County, which is deeply Republican, who serves as a secretary for the association. He added that the group had not taken a stance on the election bill but that many members were voicing their opinions individually.At a conference this month, Ryan Germany, general counsel for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, encouraged members to speak up.“They really need to know what you guys think about this stuff because they hear from a lot of people, but I don’t think they hear from a lot of election officials,” said Mr. Germany, who spoke favorably about several provisions in the bill, according to audio of the event obtained by The New York Times.Dozens of voting rights advocates and county election officials crowded the State Senate Ethics Committee hearing on Monday afternoon, saying the bill would make it harder for election administrators to do their jobs.From left, State Senators Sally Harrell, Butch Miller and Jeff Mullis listened as Cindy Battles, right, testified during the hearing on Monday. Nicole Craine for The New York Times“There are so many unfunded mandates being passed by this body. You are not giving county election officials the budget that they need to run their elections,” said Cindy Battles, the policy and engagement director at the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group. “And then you are making it more difficult to get what they need.”Several officials pointed to a provision that would require elections administrators to account for all elections-related documents, including the pieces of paper that ballots are printed on. Mr. Natt, the vice chair of elections for Forsyth County’s board of elections, held up a ream of paper to represent one of the hundreds of blank sheets of paper that his office would need to count under the law.“That is a lot of counting. That is a lot of time and waste management,” he said.State Representative James Burchett, a Republican from southeastern Georgia and sponsor of the bill, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month that “the intent of the bill is to address issues that we’ve seen in the elections process.”During the hearing on Monday, State Senator Butch Miller, a Republican and member of the State Senate Ethics Committee, appeared to consider some of the officials’ concerns.“I think we’ll probably have additional work to be done,” he said. While Mr. Miller said he was not interested in sweeping changes to the bill, he also said he was not opposed to “tweaking them and accommodating certain issues.” The committee has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill.Election officials warned about language they considered too broad in a provision that restricts third-party donations to election offices. The proposal is popular among Republicans who believe grants from an organization tied to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, had undue influence in the 2020 election. Some Georgia election officials said the legislation would require any organization that makes a donation to receive approval from the state board of elections. That could include churches or other local groups that offer their buildings as polling locations.“By a strict interpretation of this particular provision, that would be a grant of gift or donation,” Milton Kidd, the elections director in Douglas County, a deeply Democratic county, said in an interview.Mr. Kidd added that many churches did not have staff to handle the application process, which could threaten his ability to maintain enough polling locations.Officials also took issue with a provision requiring partisan poll watchers to be given “meaningful access” to observe the ballot-counting process. The language might jeopardize the privacy of the ballot, they said.“I am a big fan of poll watchers, of being observed, I want my polling places to have observation, it’s a very important part of the process,” said Mr. Kirk, the administrator in Bartow County, which is northwest of Atlanta. “But it’s also very important to have guardrails on that observation, to keep it from becoming disruptive, to make sure a person’s information stays safe.”A provision that gives the Georgia Bureau of Investigation the power to subpoena election records for fraud investigations has also stirred opposition, mostly among Democratic local officials, who view it as both unnecessary — the secretary of state’s office currently handles election investigations — and intended to scare off voters.“That just smacks of voter intimidation,” said Dele Lowman Smith, the chair of the DeKalb County board of voter registration and elections. “And that’s a big concern.” More

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      In Georgia, Trump Tries to Revive a Sputtering Campaign

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      The former president held a rally in rural Georgia on Saturday in an attempt to jump-start David Perdue’s campaign to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp.COMMERCE, Ga., — When Donald Trump recruited David Perdue to run for governor of Georgia, Mr. Trump’s allies boasted that his endorsement alone would shoot Mr. Perdue ahead of the incumbent Republican governor, Brian Kemp. Georgia Republicans braced for an epic clash, fueled by the former president’s personal vendetta against Mr. Kemp, that would divide the party.But two months out from the Republican primary election, Mr. Perdue’s campaign has been more underwhelming than epic. In an effort to boost Mr. Perdue and put his own stamp on the race, Mr. Trump came to Georgia on Saturday for a rally for Mr. Perdue and the slate of candidates the former president has endorsed. Thousands of Trump supporters turned out in the small city of Commerce, 70 miles northeast of Atlanta and about 20 miles outside of Mr. Kemp’s hometown, Athens.Early polls have steadily shown Mr. Perdue, a former senator, trailing Mr. Kemp by about 10 percentage points. The governor has the backing of many of the state’s big donors and remains far ahead of Mr. Perdue in fund-raising. After pursuing a deeply conservative legislative agenda, Mr. Kemp has secured support from most of the top state leaders and lawmakers, even those who have, until now, aligned with Mr. Trump.Mr. Perdue’s sputtering start may hint at a deeper flaw in Mr. Trump’s plan to punish the governor for refusing to work to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results: Mr. Trump’s grievances may now largely be his alone. While polls show many G.O.P. voters believe lies about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, there is little evidence that Republicans remain as fixated on the election as Mr. Trump. The challenge for Mr. Perdue, as well as for other candidates backed by Mr. Trump, is to make a case that goes beyond exacting revenge for 2020.“When you’re running against an incumbent governor, it’s a referendum on the incumbent,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a chief of staff to former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the former senator’s cousin. “And if the incumbent has a good track record, it’s going to be hard to defeat him.”Mr. Tanenblatt backed David Perdue’s past Senate campaigns, including his losing bid last year. But Mr. Tanenblatt is now among the Republicans worried that Mr. Perdue is merely distracting the party from its top goal: fending off the likely Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams.“Donald Trump’s not on the ballot. And there has to be a compelling reason why you would vote out an incumbent,” Mr. Tanenblatt said. “I don’t think there is one.”Former President Donald J. Trump listens as David Perdue speaks in Commerce, Ga., on Saturday.Audra Melton for The New York TimesAll seven of Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidates spoke at the rally. Nearly every speaker echoed Mr. Trump’s false election claims, placing the blame on Dominion voting machines and Democratic lawmakers for Republicans’ 2020 losses in Georgia. Mr. Perdue took things further, however, placing the blame for his Senate campaign loss and Mr. Trump’s defeat on Mr. Kemp.“Let me be very clear. Very clear,” Mr. Perdue said to the crowd. “In the state of Georgia, thanks to Brian Kemp, our elections were absolutely stolen. He sold us out.” How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Mr. Perdue’s allies argue that Governor Kemp’s track record is forever tainted by his refusal to try to overturn the election results or call a special legislative session to review them, even though multiple recounts confirmed Joe Biden’s win.“That’s the wound with the salt in it right now that hasn’t healed,” said Bruce LeVell, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump based in Georgia. “David Perdue is the only one that can unify the Republican Party in the state of Georgia. Period.”Michelle and Chey Thomas, an Athens couple attending the rally, said they were unsure whether they would support Mr. Perdue in the primary or vote to re-elect Mr. Kemp as they knew little of Mr. Perdue before Saturday. Like many attendees, they were unsure if they could trust the results of the 2020 election. And Mr. Kemp, they believe, did not exercise the full extent of his power in November 2020.“A lot of candidates say they are going to do something and don’t,” Ms. Thomas said. Mr. Kemp, she added, “could’ve done a lot better job.”The candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump include Herschel Walker, a former Heisman Trophy winner running for Senate; U.S. Representative Jody Hice, a candidate for secretary of state; Vernon Jones, a former Democrat now running for Congress; and John Gordon, a conservative lawyer who helped Mr. Trump defend his false election claims in court. Mr. Trump this week endorsed Mr. Gordon’s bid for state attorney general.Mr. Kemp has had years to guard himself against a challenge from the party’s Trump wing. He was one of the first governors to roll back Covid-19 restrictions in early 2020, drawing the support of many on the right who were angry about government-imposed lockdowns. Last year, he signed into law new voting restrictions that were popular with the Republican base. And in January, the governor backed a law allowing people to carry a firearm without a permit and another banning mailed abortion pills.That record, Kemp supporters argue, won over Republican base voters, even those who agree with Mr. Trump that Mr. Kemp did not do enough to fight the election results in Georgia.“I think they’ve turned the page on the election,” said State Senator Clint Dixon, a Republican representing the Atlanta suburbs. “And folks that may have been upset about that, still, they see that Governor Kemp is a proven conservative leader that we need.”Of Mr. Trump’s rally, he added: “I don’t think it does much. And the polls are showing it.”In early March, a Fox News poll of Georgia Republican primary voters showed Mr. Kemp ahead of Mr. Perdue by 11 percentage points.Mr. Kemp has amassed a war chest of more than $12.7 million, compared with the $1.1 million Mr. Perdue has raised since entering the race in December. The Republican Governors Association has also cut more than $1 million in ads supporting Mr. Kemp — the first time the organization has taken sides in a primary race. (Since December, Ms. Abrams has been raising more than both men, bringing in $9.3 million by January.)Mr. Kemp has worked to line up key Republican leaders — or keep them on the sidelines. Earlier this month, he appointed Sonny Perdue chancellor of the state’s university system. The former governor intends to remain neutral in the primary, according to people familiar with his plans.Since losing Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, Mr. Trump has tried to turn the state’s politics into a proxy war over his election grievances. He blamed Mr. Kemp for his loss, saying he did not win Georgia because the governor refused to block certification of the results. Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the results is under criminal investigation.Mr. Trump saw Mr. Kemp’s refusal as disloyal, in part because Mr. Trump endorsed the governor in a 2018 primary, helping to propel him to a decisive win.“It is personal,” said Martha Zoller, a Georgia-based conservative radio host and former aide to both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Perdue. “President Trump believes that he made Brian Kemp.”Gov. Brian Kemp spoke to supporters at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta this month.Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressNow Mr. Perdue’s campaign is looking for the same boost from Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Perdue’s ads, social media pages and campaign website note that he is endorsed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Perdue’s campaign aides believe many voters are not yet paying attention and do not know that he has Mr. Trump’s support. The former corporate executive has been a Trump ally, but he hardly exuded the bombast of his political benefactor during his one term in the Senate.Mr. Perdue is now running to the right of Mr. Kemp. He recently campaigned with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene at a rally in her rural northwest Georgia district, even after the congresswoman appeared at a far-right conference with ties to white supremacy.At the rally, Mr. Perdue lamented the “assault” on Georgia’s elections and reminded the crowd that he “fought for President Trump” in November 2020. At the time, he said, he asked not only for Mr. Kemp to call a special legislative session, but also for the resignation of Georgia’s current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — remarks received with loud applause.Although Mr. Perdue’s campaign has largely focused on the 2020 election, he and Mr. Kemp have split over other issues. Mr. Perdue opposed construction of a Rivian Automotive electric truck factory in the state, saying that the tax incentives it brings could benefit wealthy liberal donors. Mr. Kemp embraced the deal as a potential economic boon.Mr. Perdue also split with Mr. Kemp when Mr. Perdue gave his support to a group of residents in Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood who are seeking to secede from the city. The idea gained traction among some who were concerned about rising crime rates in Atlanta, but the effort is now stalled in the state legislature.If Mr. Trump was concerned about the campaign, he didn’t show it at the rally. Before bringing Mr. Perdue onstage later in the evening, he promised supporters that the former senator would champion election integrity and defeat Stacey Abrams.“That’s a big crowd of people,” he said. “And they all love David Perdue.” More

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      Andre Dickens Is Elected Mayor of Atlanta

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      Mr. Dickens and Felicia Moore had advanced to the runoff election by beating former Mayor Kasim Reed.ATLANTA — Andre Dickens, a veteran City Council member, was elected mayor of Atlanta in an upset on Tuesday night after promising voters that he would help guide the city in a more equitable direction.Mr. Dickens, 47, will step into one of the most high-profile political positions in the South after defeating Felicia Moore, 60, the City Council president, in Tuesday’s runoff election.In a first round of voting, Ms. Moore had bested Mr. Dickens by more than 17 percentage points. But on Tuesday, Mr. Dickens had about 62 percent of the vote when The Associated Press declared him the winner at about 10:30 p.m.Mr. Dickens, a church deacon, delivered an upbeat, roof-raising victory speech to supporters, noting his humble upbringing in the working-class neighborhood of Adamsville, his engineering degree from Georgia Tech and the daunting problems he has promised to tackle.“We are facing some generational problems in our city,” he said. “Atlanta is growing in population and in wealth. Businesses are flocking to the city, yet we still have people living on our streets. We have people working at our airport just to meet last month’s rent. People are still fighting to stay in their homes in the city that they love.”But if there was “any city in the world” that could face these issues, he added, “it’s Atlanta.”Voting at the Church at Ponce & Highland in Atlanta on Tuesday.Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressThe mayor’s race unfolded at a time of promise and peril for Atlanta. The city’s population grew 17 percent in the past decade, to about 499,000 people, and a number of major technology companies are expanding their footprint in the city in hopes of increasing diversity, given that nearly half of city residents are Black.But like many U.S. cities, Atlanta has been struggling with spikes in a number of violent crime categories, including murder. In May, the city’s political future was thrown into doubt when Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced she would not run for re-election after a first term in which she was forced to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, a high-profile police shooting of a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, and racial justice protests that occasionally became violent.As other killings rocked the city, public safety emerged as the key issue in the mayor’s race, giving an early boost to former Mayor Kasim Reed, who argued that his experience made him uniquely qualified to solve the crime problem. But Mr. Reed, who left office in 2018, also brought significant political baggage, with numerous members of his administration convicted or indicted on federal corruption-related charges.Mr. Reed’s complicated past was a likely factor in the surprise outcome in the initial balloting, when Mr. Dickens nudged out the better-known Mr. Reed to secure a spot in the runoff against the first-place finisher, Ms. Moore.Since then, Mr. Dickens and Ms. Moore endeavored to distinguish themselves in the nonpartisan race, despite the fact they are both liberal Democrats who share many of the same policy goals.Both supported hiring more police officers, encouraging the reform of police culture and increasing Atlanta’s stock of affordable housing.Felicia Moore campaigning in Atlanta in September.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBoth candidates also opposed a controversial effort to allow Buckhead, an upscale, majority-white neighborhood, to secede from Atlanta, taking with it a substantial chunk of the city’s tax base. This potential divorce, which has been fueled by crime concerns, would require approval by the Republican-dominated State Legislature and a subsequent vote by the neighborhood’s residents. To derail the plan, the next mayor will need to deploy the bully pulpit and engage in nimble and strategic lobbying of Republicans who control the Statehouse.During the campaign, Ms. Moore, a real estate agent, leaned into her reputation as a thorn in the side of previous mayors, including Mr. Reed. Before he left office, she argued that he should be held accountable for the corruption on his watch. She reminded voters that she backed legislation creating a new inspector general for City Hall as well as an independent compliance office, both in reaction to the scandals that dogged the Reed administration.“I am actually like the outsider that’s on the inside, fighting against corruption, fighting against the status quo, sometimes fighting the established order of things,” Ms. Moore told a recent audience at a mayoral forum.Mr. Dickens is the chief development officer at TechBridge, a nonprofit organization that uses technology to help amplify the work of other nonprofits. During the campaign he emphasized his role in increasing the minimum wage for city employees, as well as spearheading the creation of a city transportation department. Mr. Dickens, who was endorsed by Mayor Bottoms and former Mayor Shirley Franklin, argued in recent weeks that Ms. Moore had spent more time criticizing others than racking up her own achievements over the course of her long career.“She does nothing and I do a lot,” Mr. Dickens said in a recent interview.Both Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens are Black. Tuesday’s election extends a streak of Black mayors in Atlanta since the election of Maynard Jackson in 1973 despite a recent influx of white residents that caused the share of Black residents to decline from a slight majority to 47 percent of the population, according to an analysis of 2020 Census figures. More

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      Felicia Moore, Andre Dickens Will Compete for Atlanta Mayor; Kasim Reed Falls Short

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      ATLANTA — The mayoral election in Atlanta produced a surprise result, as Kasim Reed, a former two-term mayor once considered a front-runner in the race, failed to finish in either first or second place, denying him the chance to compete in the Nov. 30 runoff and ending his surprising political comeback bid.Felicia Moore, the City Council president, finished first in Tuesday’s race with about 41 percent of the vote, followed by Andre Dickens, a city councilman, who narrowly bested Mr. Reed with about 23 percent of the vote. Both Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens had attacked Mr. Reed for the series of corruption scandals that unfolded on his watch at City Hall, resulting in numerous indictments and guilty pleas from high-ranking city officials.Amid the controversy, Mr. Reed, who had been one of the most high-profile politicians in the state, virtually disappeared from the political stage after leaving office in January 2018. He officially returned to the scene in June, announcing that he would seek a third term after the current mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, declared she would not run for a second term.Mr. Reed led a crowded field of contestants in early polling with a message heavily focused on a promise to fix the city’s violent crime problems. In a statement on Thursday afternoon, he thanked Atlanta voters and congratulated Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens.“When I declared my candidacy for mayor in June, I had one goal: to restore safety in every neighborhood across our city,” Mr. Reed said. “Like many others, I witnessed the tapestry of diverse communities that make up our city be torn apart by surging levels of violent crime.”Kasim Reed, a former two-term Atlanta mayor, failed to make it to the runoff.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBut the corruption concerns appeared to have dragged him down, even as he reminded voters that he had never been charged or indicted after a lengthy federal investigation of his administration.Like Mr. Reed, both Ms. Moore, 60, and Mr. Dickens, 47, have promised to get a handle on violent crime. Both candidates have also focused on affordable housing, an increasingly hot topic in a rapidly gentrifying city.Because so much of the race leading up to the election was focused on Mr. Reed and questions about his fitness for office, it is unclear how Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens will seek to differentiate themselves in the runoff phase, and which lines of attack they might try against each other.On Tuesday night, after The Associated Press had projected that Ms. Moore would advance to the runoff, she hugged and shook hands with supporters and volunteers as “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas played. Ms. Moore said the election was about “a new Atlanta — an Atlanta where everyone’s going to feel safe.”“An Atlanta,” she continued, “where when you spend your money for your taxes and your services, you’re going to get them.”Ms. Moore, center, celebrated with her supporters on Tuesday night.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesOn Thursday afternoon, Mr. Dickens pushed a message of unity and urged supporters of the candidates who did not make it to the runoff to support him. “I’m a bridge builder, I’m inclusive, I will bring this city together because I draw circles, I don’t draw lines to separate people,” he said. “I will bring us together and we will get things done.”Mr. Dickens, who joined the City Council in 2013, is a product of Atlanta’s public school system who earned an engineering degree from Georgia Tech. In recent years he has focused on ways to help disadvantaged people find jobs in the city’s growing technology sector.Ms. Moore has served on the City Council for more than two decades after serving as head of her neighborhood association. During the current campaign, she has emphasized good-government reforms she championed at City Hall, where she was an outspoken critic of perceived excesses in the Reed administration.Both Mr. Dickens and Ms. Moore are Black. Their advancement into the runoff ensures that the city’s streak of electing African American mayors, which stretches back to 1973, will be unbroken, despite a significant influx of white residents in recent years. More

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      Kasim Reed Focuses on Crime in Atlanta Mayoral Election

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      Kasim Reed, the former mayor whose administration was marked by corruption scandals, is running for another term, promising to restore public safety.ATLANTA — The fear of rising crime in American cities is having a profound effect on mayoral politics from New York to Seattle. In Atlanta, it has had the power of resurrection, delivering a reanimating jolt to the once-moribund career of one of the South’s most polarizing public figures.Kasim Reed, the former Atlanta mayor who fell off the political map in 2018 amid a steady drip of scandal in his administration, has returned to the spotlight with an unlikely bid for a third term and is now a leading candidate in a crowded field of lesser-known contenders.The overwhelming focus of Mr. Reed’s second act is the troubling increase in violent crime in Atlanta — and a promise that he, alone, can fix it.“I am the only candidate with the experience and track record to address our city’s surge in violent crime,” he recently wrote on Twitter, introducing a new campaign ad in which he called public safety “Job No. 1.”“I am the only candidate with the experience and track record to address our city’s surge in violent crime,” Mr. Reed wrote on Twitter.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesIn an echo of moderate Democrats like Eric Adams, the winner of this summer’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, Mr. Reed is promising to strengthen law enforcement in a way that takes into account grass-roots demands for a cultural change in policing. He has promised to add 750 officers to Atlanta’s police force. “But we’re going to train them in a post-George Floyd way,” he said in a recent television ad.Most of Mr. Reed’s major opponents in the nonpartisan race identify as Democrats, and most are also offering some version of this message, which is distinctly different from the defund-the-police rhetoric that emerged from progressive activists during the street protests of 2020.Mr. Reed’s fate at the polls in November may also hint at how much voters are willing to overlook from politicians so long as they think they might gain a modicum of peace and order. His time in office was defined by a sharp-elbowed style that some described as bullying, and by several scandals involving kickbacks, theft of public funds and weapons violations, among other things.Felicia Moore, the City Council president and one of Mr. Reed’s top rivals for mayor, wants voters to think hard about the string of corruption cases involving members of his administration. “The leadership should take responsibility for the actions of their administration,” she said. “He was the leader of that organization.”But in Atlanta, crime has increasingly taken center stage. The number of homicides investigated by the Atlanta police surged from 99 in 2019 to 157 in 2020, a year when the United States experienced its largest one-year increase in homicides on record, and in Atlanta, this year is on track to be worse. Some homicides have particularly horrified residents over the past year: An 8-year-old girl shot and killed in a car she was riding in with her mother last summer. A 27-year-old bartender kidnapped at gunpoint and killed as she was returning home from a shift last month. A 40-year-old woman mutilated and stabbed to death, along with her dog, while she was on a late-night walk near Piedmont Park, the city’s signature open space, in July.“They are more random, and they’re happening all over the city at all times of day,” said Sharon Gay, a mayoral candidate who noted that she was mugged about 18 months ago near her home in the well-heeled neighborhood of Inman Park. A memorial for Katherine Janness, who was fatally stabbed near Piedmont Park this summer.Ron Harris/Associated PressThe political ramifications extend beyond the mayor’s office. Georgia Republicans have begun campaigning with dire warnings about the violence in liberal Atlanta — even though cities run by both Democrats and Republicans have seen a rise in violent crime. Gov. Brian Kemp has devoted millions in funding for a new “crime suppression unit” in the city. And the upscale Buckhead neighborhood is threatening to secede from Atlanta due mostly to concerns about crime, a move that could be disastrous for the city’s tax base.Some critics blame the current mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, for failing to adequately tackle the crime problem.This spring, a few days before Ms. Bottoms announced she would not run for re-election, Mr. Reed asserted that crime had reached “unacceptable levels” that were “fracturing” the city. It was widely interpreted as a turn against Ms. Bottoms, his one-time protégée, and a sign that Mr. Reed was plotting a comeback.When it came, it was with a heavy dose of glamour.“The fate of the city of Atlanta is at stake,” Mr. Reed declared at a star-studded party at the Buckhead manse of Tyrese Gibson, the actor and musician. “Atlanta, tell L.A., tell New York, tell Charlotte, tell Dallas, tell Chicago, and definitely tell Miami — I’m back!” In a matter of weeks, he had raised roughly $1 million in campaign contributions.Still, the idea that Atlanta would be better off if it could go back to the days of 2010 through 2017, when Mr. Reed was in office, is deeply divisive. Mr. Reed takes credit for keeping crime low during those years and boasts of recruiting hundreds of police officers.F.B.I. statistics show that violent crime in the city fell beginning in 2012, and continued falling throughout Mr. Reed’s tenure, a time when violent crime around the country was on a downward trend that began in the early 1990s.In fact, the total number of violent crimes per year continued to decline in Atlanta through 2020. But the high-profile nature of some of the more recent crimes has put many residents on edge, as have some short-term trends: As of early September, murders, rapes and aggravated assaults were all up compared with the same time last year.Mr. Reed has promised to add 750 officers to Atlanta’s police force. Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Reed, as mayor, could display both conviction and practicality: He dismissed the city fire chief after the chief published a book calling homosexual acts “vile,” and he faced down union protesters in pushing through reforms to address the city’s enormous unfunded pension liability.However, investigations into scandals in Mr. Reed’s administration led to guilty pleas from the city’s former chief procurement officer, its former contract compliance officer and Mr. Reed’s deputy chief of staff. A former human services director, watershed management head and chief financial officer were also indicted, and are awaiting trial.In June, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, relying on court documents and campaign records, reported that Mr. Reed appeared to be under federal investigation for using campaign funds for personal purchases. Mr. Reed, in an interview, said the Justice Department had told his lawyers he was not under investigation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta declined to comment.In the interview, Mr. Reed said he accepted responsibility for the problems that occurred on his watch, and noted that after years of scrutiny, no charges have been lodged against him. “I have been through a level of vetting and security that very few people go through and survive, and I have come out with my name clear,” he said. He suggested that racism might have been a reason for all the scrutiny he received.Federal investigations like the ones in Atlanta, he said, are “frequently directed at Black political leaders, certainly in the job of mayor.”In a University of Georgia poll commissioned by The Journal-Constitution and conducted in late August and early September, Mr. Reed was narrowly leading the mayoral race, with roughly 24 percent support. But about 41 percent of likely voters were undecided, and Mr. Reed’s opponents are hoping to convince them that there are better choices.Felicia Moore, the City Council president, narrowly trailed Mr. Reed in a recent poll.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesSome voters have had enough of Mr. Reed. Bruce Maclachlan, 85, is a landlord who lives in Inman Park close to the place where Ms. Gay was mugged. Corruption, he said, seemed to be “circulating around Kasim Reed. It makes you wonder.”Mr. Maclachlan said he was voting for Ms. Moore, the City Council president who was just behind Mr. Reed in the poll with about 20 percent support. He said she appeared to be honest and free of scandal.Robert Patillo, a criminal defense lawyer, has felt the crime problem intimately. In the past few months, his sister’s car was stolen, his laptop was stolen from his car, and a friend’s house was broken into.“I think everybody’s been touched by it,” he said.Mr. Patillo said he, too, was voting for Ms. Moore, who he believed would be more trustworthy and better at balancing crime fighting with a civil rights agenda. But he said he understood the appeal of Mr. Reed. “When people are scared,” he said, “they turn back to a strongman.”Pinky Cole, the founder of Slutty Vegan, a local restaurant chain with a cult following, had a different view. Ms. Cole, one of the city’s better known young African American entrepreneurs, said Mr. Reed had helped her with legal problems her business faced.For Ms. Cole, the issues of crime and the city’s business climate were intertwined, a common sentiment in Atlanta these days, but one that has hit her particularly hard: In recent months, she said, two of her employees have been shot, one of them fatally.Despite the baggage from the corruption cases, she believed that Mr. Reed was a man of integrity. And she saw how he had made the city safe before.“I’m confident,” she said, “that he’ll do it again.” More

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      Potential G.O.P. Takeover of Atlanta-Area Election Board Inches Forward

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      Republicans in Georgia took a step toward gaining control over elections in Fulton County, a Democratic bastion.The Georgia State Election Board on Wednesday appointed a majority-Republican panel to review the performance of the Fulton County board of elections, another step toward a potential Republican takeover of the election system in the biggest Democratic county in the state.The three-person panel will include two Republicans and one Democrat: Rickey Kittle, a Republican member of the Catoosa County election board; Stephen Day, a Democratic member of the Gwinnett County election board; and Ryan Germany, a lawyer for the office of Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state.The moves surrounding the Fulton County election board have come as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country angle for greater power over election administration, often seeking to strip it from election officials and give it to partisan lawmakers. Those efforts come as former President Donald J. Trump continues to spread lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.Republicans have also pushed to restructure many county election boards in Georgia, potentially allowing more local G.O.P. officials to take over positions.The State Election Board was required to appoint the panel reviewing Fulton County under the Georgia voting law that Republicans passed in March. Republican state lawmakers who represent the county requested the review last month.Fulton County, which is the largest in the state and includes much of Atlanta, has a long history of struggles with elections, including a disastrous primary in June 2020 in which voting lines lasted for hours.But Democrats across the state have denounced the push for a performance review there, noting that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud last year and that the election results were affirmed by three recounts and audits. Democrats view the request as a political stunt at best, and at worst a partisan takeover in the most consequential county for their party in Georgia.President Biden carried Fulton County in November with 73 percent of the vote and more than 380,000 votes. It is home to the largest number of voters of color in the state. Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have falsely denied Mr. Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia, which has long been solidly Republican but last year tilted to the Democrats in the presidential election and two Senate runoffs.Voting rights groups criticized the review panel — all white and predominantly Republican — as unrepresentative of Fulton County.“Fulton County voters deserve better than this,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, the chief executive of Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group in Georgia founded by Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor.The review panel is one of several provisions in Georgia’s new voting law that lay the groundwork for the takeover of election administration by partisan lawmakers.But any potential change in control of the Fulton County election board would be a drawn-out process, most likely taking months given the many steps required by the voting law.Mr. Raffensperger, the secretary of state, indicated his support for the panel, writing on Twitter, “I have been saying for a long time that the state needs the authority to step in when counties have consistently failed their voters.”“I’m confident that the performance review team will do a good job, and I hope Fulton will cooperate with this process,” he said. More

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      Atlanta Mayor Faces Criticism Over 'Covid Crime Wave'

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      Keisha Lance Bottoms, who announced she would not run for re-election, faced criticism for her city’s sharp increase in violence.Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta rattled off a list of grinding municipal crises on Friday, saying there was not a specific reason she decided not to seek re-election.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockATLANTA — At a news conference in which she fought to hold back tears, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta said on Friday that there was no single reason for her abrupt and dramatic decision not to run for a second term.She did, however, rattle off a list of grinding municipal crises she has faced since taking office in 2018: a crippling cyberattack at City Hall, a federal corruption investigation that started under her predecessor, the coronavirus pandemic, social justice protests, and the challenge of governing under former President Donald J. Trump, whom she referred to as “a madman in the White House.”But the most serious political threat that emerged for Ms. Bottoms in recent months was a phenomenon she had previously described as the “Covid crime wave.” Like many other American cities, Atlanta is struggling with a spike in violent crime, including a 58 percent increase in homicides last year — the likely result, researchers say, of the pandemic’s strain on at-risk populations, as well as institutions like courts and police departments.The mayor’s inability to get a handle on crime has become the central theme for two challengers — Felicia Moore, the City Council president, and Sharon Gay, a lawyer — who thought they were going to take her on in the November election. “Atlanta has a mayor that is more interested in things that happen outside Atlanta,” Ms. Moore said in a recent statement, referring to Ms. Bottoms’s emerging national stature, including talk that she was rumored to be a possible vice-presidential candidate. “We need a mayor who knows the No. 1 job of any mayor is to keep our city safe.”Ms. Bottoms on Friday pushed back against the idea that she was worried about re-election, saying that she was popular enough to have won without a runoff. But others were not so sure. And Ms. Bottoms’s predicament could become common for city leaders around the United States as crime concerns take a political toll.Law enforcement on patrol in Atlanta in January. More than 400 officer vacancies have gone unfilled in the Police Department.Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York TimesThe dynamic is already rippling through other cities. In Philadelphia, a city suffering from a spike in homicides and gun crime, Larry Krasner, the progressive district attorney, is facing a serious challenge from a candidate, Carlos Vega, who says Mr. Krasner “has not delivered on safety.”In San Francisco, where burglaries were up 46 percent in 2020 and car thefts up 22 percent, according to The San Francisco Chronicle, a similarly progressive prosecutor, Chesa Boudin, is facing a recall effort from critics focused on crime.In St. Louis, where homicides were up 35 percent last year, former Mayor Lyda Krewson decided not to run for a second term after the wearying trials of 2020. The city’s new mayor, Tishaura Jones, is, like Ms. Bottoms, an outspoken advocate for criminal justice reform who now faces the challenge of radically reimagining policing and incarceration while bringing her city’s crime numbers down.In Atlanta, crime has continued raging into 2021. In the first 18 weeks of the year, police statistics show homicides up 57 percent, rapes up 55 percent, aggravated assaults up 36 percent and auto thefts up 31 percent compared with the same period last year.The state’s speaker of the House, David Ralston, a Republican, plans to hold hearings this summer to consider putting state troopers on Atlanta’s streets. Weapons detectors were installed at the entrance of the Lenox Square mall in the upscale Buckhead neighborhood, making shopping feel like a trip to a courthouse. Some Buckhead residents are so fed up they have formed a group to explore whether to secede from the city — a move that would devastate Atlanta’s tax base.A report released in February by the Council on Criminal Justice gave a snapshot of the crime that afflicted American cities in 2020, with many of them suffering a sharp rise in homicides, aggravated assault and gun assaults.But the researchers also noted that the numbers were “well below historical highs” before crime began plummeting nationwide in the 1990s. And for now, the fear of crime does not appear to have the same political juice that it had in previous decades, when scare campaigns could help decide presidential contests and get-tough rhetoric was a winning tactic in big-city elections.Indeed, the widespread demand for criminal justice reform in liberal-leaning cities like Atlanta appears to have tempered the language and platforms of candidates promising to solve the crime problem.Protesters erected a “Defund the Police” sign in Atlanta after a police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks last year.Elijah Nouvelage/ReutersBoth Ms. Gay and Ms. Moore, for example, argue that the next mayor of Atlanta needs to be smarter about crime, not necessarily tougher. Instead of criticizing Ms. Bottoms for embracing criminal justice reform, Ms. Moore — who, like Ms. Bottoms, is African-American — essentially agrees that reform and safety are not either-or propositions.“I believe wholeheartedly we can do both,” she said.However, the political problem Ms. Bottoms would have faced demonstrates the enduring peril of being perceived as unable to meet the challenge of rising crime. Critics have blasted her for allowing more than 400 officer vacancies to go unfilled in the Atlanta Police Department, which is supposed to be 2,046 officers strong.Ms. Moore has criticized her for failing to hold a national search for a replacement for former Chief Erika Shields, who stepped down in June in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Rayshard Brooks. (This week, Ms. Bottoms gave the interim chief, Rodney Bryant, the permanent role.)Others have lashed into the Bottoms administration for botching the firing of Garrett Rolfe, the white officer who killed Mr. Brooks, a Black man. The administration fired Officer Rolfe the day after the shooting, but this week, the city’s Civil Service Board reinstated him on the grounds that his due process rights had been violated.Such missteps went a long way to explaining why Ms. Bottoms had made herself politically vulnerable, said Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University.“It’s not because she’s too progressive,” Mr. Cunningham said. “It’s because she’s too incompetent.”Over the years, a number of people who worked with Ms. Bottoms in City Hall said she did not always seem fully engaged in the day-to-day chore of governance. At her Friday news conference, Ms. Bottoms said she had been thinking about not running for re-election as early as her first year in office. “I can’t describe it,” she said of that feeling, “but I wasn’t sure that I would run again.”Opponents of Ms. Bottoms have criticized her for failing to hold a national search for a replacement for Erika Shields, the former police chief.Audra Melton for The New York TimesAt the same time, Ms. Bottoms has displayed a passion for enacting criminal justice reform, a topic she couches in personal terms. On Friday, she made reference, as she often has, to the painful story of her father, the R&B singer Major Lance, who was convicted of selling cocaine when she was a child.The experience inspired her to limit the public disclosure of small-scale marijuana arrest records and eliminate cash bond requirements at the city jail. She hopes to transform the jail itself into a social services hub she calls a “center for equity.”Her Police Department, meanwhile, is engaged in a review of training and policy, with the goal of making the department more community-oriented.Though revamping the department may pay off in the long run, Dean Dabney, a professor of criminology at Georgia State University, said it could increase crime in the short run.“If you switch from tactical policing to community policing, it’s going to take time to reallocate those resources and get those resources doing things the new way,” he said. “During that adjustment period the criminals are going to have the upper hand.”In the weeks before she declared that she would not run again, Ms. Bottoms seemed aware of the way that crime had taken center stage. She has promised to hire 250 police officers in the near future, crack down on nuisance properties, increase enforcement against gangs, and expand the city security camera network.In her news conference, Ms. Bottoms said she would focus, in her remaining months in office, on keeping the city safe. “I’m doing that not because I’m a mayor, but because I’m a mother in this city,” she said. “I want this city to be safe for my family, in the same way that I want it to be safe for everybody else who’s standing in this room.” More