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      Obama to Georgia Democrats: ‘Resist the Temptation to Give Up’

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      ATLANTA — Former President Barack Obama implored Georgia Democrats not to “tune out” politics and to “resist the temptation to give up,” as he tried to energize his party’s most loyal voters in a state that could decide control of the U.S. Senate. Speaking to a crowd of several thousand, Mr. Obama noted the many issues that may be dampening voter enthusiasm — inflation, rising crime and the war in Ukraine — making little mention that those ills have happened while his party controls Washington. But he cast the midterm elections as a fight not over policy differences, but the health of democracy. “I get why you might be worried. I understand why it might be tempting sometimes to tune out,” Mr. Obama said. “But I’m here to tell you that tuning out is not an option.” His speech, a mix of his familiar applause lines and new warnings about threats to democratic norms, aimed to boost Democratic candidates in the state even as their party has suffered low approval ratings nationwide. He presented Democrats as the best alternative to Republican lawmakers, a group that he said is “not interested in actually solving problems.” Mr. Obama was especially pointed in his criticism of Herschel Walker, a former University of Georgia football star and the Republican challenger to the state’s senator, Raphael Warnock. Mr. Walker, Mr. Obama said, is “a celebrity who wants to be a politician.” Mr. Walker’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Obama’s remarks.Mr. Obama arrived as the campaign enters the final stretch and Democrats are desperate to fire up their base, especially Black voters who have struggled with inflation and rising crime but have been left cold by the Biden administration. His stop in College Park, outside Atlanta, was the first of five events he is planning in coming days. He is due in Michigan and Wisconsin on Saturday, then Nevada and Pennsylvania next week — all states with close Senate races. Mr. Obama, at times, acknowledged voters’ fatigue and hardly mentioned President Biden, his former vice president. “Joe is fighting for you every day. He’s got your back. He’s doing everything he can to put more money in your pockets,” he said. Georgia Democrats have pointed to sky-high early voting figures as a sign of strength heading into Election Day. Nearly 1.3 million voters have cast ballots in the state, with the strongest performances coming from older Black voters and those in the deep-blue metro Atlanta counties of Fulton and DeKalb, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.But all signs point to strong turnout on both sides, with Republican voters poised to pour into polling places on Election Day. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings remain low, standing last month at an abysmal 37 percent in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll. And while key portions of the Democratic base have turned out en masse, Democrats will still need to outperform with voters under 30 and women in the Atlanta suburbs to find success in November.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: The debate performance by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is still recovering from a stroke, has thrust questions of health to the center of the pivotal race and raised Democratic anxieties.G.O.P. Inflation Plans: Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture Congress, but few economists expect their proposals to bring down rising prices.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.“I look at the early vote numbers in Georgia, and see them as certainly positive news for Democrats,” said Tom Bonier, chief executive of the Democratic polling firm TargetSmart, which is working for the Abrams campaign. “But I think it’s also something that shows the work that needs to be done.”Friday’s rally was billed as an event for Georgia’s entire Democratic ticket. But two of its candidates took center stage: Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor who is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, in a rematch, and Mr. Warnock. Ms. Abrams’ campaign has been particularly focused on winning over Black men, whose votes are also vital to Mr. Warnock if he is to defeat Mr. Walker. Black voters could also make the difference elsewhere, especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where lagging turnout from voters of color helped Donald J. Trump secure narrow victories.“I think we’re going to see Black voters step up to the plate,” said Quentin James, president and co-founder of The Collective, a political action committee devoted to electing Black Democrats. “But you can’t divorce that from the reality that the country hasn’t always stood up for Black voters.”At a Democratic event called Georgia Black Men Call to Action, audience members listened to a speech by Stacey Abrams.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Obama tried to cast the election as dire moment for the country, pointing to Republicans’ questioning of the results of the 2020 election. Democratic candidates, he said, are a bulwark against Republican candidates who are running on a platform of election denial. “If they win, there’s no telling what would happen,” he said. Jameelah Gray, 32, after voting early at Morehouse College in Atlanta. All signs point to strong turnout on both sides in Georgia.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe former president’s earlier forays into midterm battlegrounds were anything but resounding successes. In 2010, he crisscrossed the country trying to rally voters — especially young voters — by telling them that Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and Democrats had pulled it out. Unimpressed, the electorate responded with what he called a “shellacking,” handing Republicans a 68-seat gain in the House, the largest since 1948, along with seven seats in the Senate and six additional governorships.In 2014, Republicans netted nine Senate seats, cementing control of Congress for Mr. Obama’s final two years in office.Out of office, however, Mr. Obama is arguably a more popular Democratic figure than the current president — or any other Democratic leader, for that matter.“There’s nostalgia for the Obama era with a lot of swing voters,” said Tim Phillips, a Republican strategist and former president of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political organization funded by the Koch family. “I think he’s their best spokesperson.”For his part, Mr. Biden has been a low-key presence on the campaign trail, avoiding large rallies altogether. On Friday night, he spoke at a Democratic dinner in Pennsylvania, where he celebrated Democrats’ legislative wins and railed against both Republican policies and candidates. Mr. James argued that Mr. Biden’s scarcity on the campaign trail was not really about Black voters, saying Mr. Biden was even less popular with white voters. By contrast, he said, African Americans remained deeply connected to the first and only Black president, who drew the highest turnout of Black voters in history.“Obama’s going to ramp up urgency,” he said, “not just for voting but for voting early. It will be a call to action.”The political environment for Democrats is far more uncertain than it was in either of the Obama midterms. Unemployment is low and the economy is growing, but Americans are confronting the worst inflation the nation has seen in 40 years, which is driving up interest rates and clawing back any sense of income gains as the pandemic recedes.On the other hand, the Supreme Court’s repeal of abortion rights and the looming presence of Mr. Trump are energizing the Democratic base in ways that Mr. Obama did not experience in his years in office.“Presidents look better in the rear-view mirror,” said Mo Elleithee, who was a senior official at the Democratic National Committee during the drubbing the party took in 2014.With little more than a week to go, Democrats are bracing for either a significant Republican wave that hands control of both the House and Senate to the Republican Party, or a split decision, with Democrats retaining control of a tightly divided Senate and Republicans squeaking out a narrow majority in the House.Developments in key races have only heightened Democratic anxieties. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s halting debate performance against Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, spotlighted the effect Mr. Fetterman’s stroke had had on his ability to communicate and frayed the nerves of Pennsylvania Democrats.The Republicans’ main super PAC resumed advertising on television in New Hampshire, convinced that the race between Senator Maggie Hassan and her Republican challenger, Don Bolduc, had tightened. And prognosticators moved the Arizona contest between Senator Mark Kelly and his Republican challenger, Blake Masters, back to a tossup.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, in Syracuse on Thursday, was recorded expressing his concerns to President Biden about where Democrats stood in Senate contests.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesPerhaps most exasperating to Democrats is the Senate race in Georgia, where a second woman this week accused Mr. Walker of having paid for her to have an abortion. Mr. Walker has denied both women’s claims.Caught on a hot microphone on Thursday, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was heard telling Mr. Biden, “The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia. It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker.” On Friday night the Walker campaign pointed to remarks the candidate made earlier in the day where he said “Unlike Raphael Warnock I’m not a politician. I’m a warrior for God.”Jessica Taylor, the Senate analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said, “It really does feel like there is a lot of movement in these races.” She still rates control of the Senate a tossup, but, she added, “If this is a wave, you could see others swept away,” like Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado.On the other hand, recent polling has tantalized Democrats in Iowa, where Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican, is seeking another six-year term at age 89; in North Carolina, where the Democratic nominee for the Senate, Cheri Beasley, remains knotted with her Republican opponent, Ted Budd; and even in Utah, where Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, is facing an unexpectedly strong challenge from an independent, the former C.I.A. officer Evan McMullin.“This is the trickiest midterm environment I’ve seen in a long time,” said Steve Israel, a former House member from New York who once headed the House Democrats’ campaign arm.Maya King reported from Atlanta and Jonathan Weisman from Chicago. More

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      Is a red wave about to touch down on US shores? Politics Weekly America – podcast

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      With less than two weeks to go before the November midterm elections, analysts are working overtime to try to predict the outcome. Will Republicans manage to take both the House and the Senate from the Democrats? Will the overturning of Roe v Wade be the catalyst that brings new Democrats to the polls? Is Donald Trump really as influential in the GOP as he thinks he is?
      This week, Jonathan Freedland and Joan E Greve bring us the latest on the races to watch, the candidates to pay attention to and the issues dominating the campaigns

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: Fox News, CNBC, CBS, MSNBC and ABC. Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Trump aide Mark Meadows must testify before Georgia grand jury, judge orders

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      Trump aide Mark Meadows must testify before Georgia grand jury, judge ordersTrump’s former chief of staff must answer questions about alleged attempt to overturn 2020 election result A judge on Wednesday ordered the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify before a special grand jury investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn Georgia’s results in the 2020 election.Trump’s ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows complies with January 6 subpoenaRead moreMeadows is a key figure in the investigation. He traveled to Georgia, sat in on calls with state officials and coordinated and communicated with influencers either encouraging or discouraging the pressure campaign.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, opened the investigation last year. Meadows is just one of several Trump associates and advisers whose testimony Willis has sought.Because Meadows does not live in Georgia, Willis, a Democrat, had to get a judge where he lives, in South Carolina, to order him to appear. Edward Miller, a circuit court judge in Pickens county, ordered Meadows to testify, a Willis spokesperson confirmed.Meadows’s attorney, Jim Bannister, said his client was “weighing all options” including appeals.“Nothing final until we see the order,” he said.Willis has been fighting similar battles in courts around the US. An appeals court in Texas has indicated it may not recognize the validity of the Georgia summonses. Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, asked the US supreme court to intervene after a federal appeals court ordered him to testify.In the petition seeking Meadows’s testimony, Willis wrote that he attended a 21 December 2020 meeting with Trump and others “to discuss allegations of voter fraud and certification of electoral college votes from Georgia and other states”.The next day, Willis wrote, Meadows made a “surprise visit” to Cobb county, just outside Atlanta, where an audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes was being conducted. He asked to observe but was not allowed to because the audit was not open to the public, the petition says.Meadows also sent emails to justice department officials alleging voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere and requesting investigations, Willis wrote. And he took part in a 2 January 2021 call with the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump suggested Raffensperger “find” enough votes to overturn the president’s loss in the state.According to a transcript of the call, Meadows said Trump’s team believed that “not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted. And that’s at odds with the representation from the secretary of state’s office.” He also said he hoped they could agree on a way “to look at this a little bit more fully”. Raffensperger disputed the assertions.After the election, Meadows was widely seen in the White House as a chief instigator of Trump’s fixation on the election, passing along conspiracies about fraud other officials were forced to swat down. He pushed one theory that people in Italy had changed votes in the US with satellite technology, a claim the former justice department official Richard Donoghue labeled “pure insanity”.In a court filing this week, Meadows’s lawyer argued that executive privilege and other rights shield his client from testifying.Bannister asserted that Meadows has been instructed by Trump “to preserve certain privileges and immunities attaching to his former office as White House chief of staff”. Willis’s petition calls for him “to divulge the contents of executive privileged communications with the president”, Bannister wrote.Meadows also invoked that privilege in a fight against subpoenas issued by the House January 6 committee. Meadows has been fighting investigations of the Capitol attack and has avoided having to testify. He turned over thousands of texts to the House committee before refusing an interview.The House held Meadows in contempt of Congress but the justice department declined to prosecute.Special grand juries in Georgia cannot issue indictments. Instead, they can gather evidence and compel testimony and recommend further action, including criminal charges. It is up to the district attorney to decide whether to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury.TopicsGeorgiaTrump administrationUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Second Woman Says Walker Paid for Her to Have Abortion

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      A woman who did not identify herself said on Wednesday that Herschel Walker pressured her to have an abortion and paid for the procedure nearly three decades ago after a yearslong extramarital relationship. A former football star, Mr. Walker is running for the Senate in Georgia as an abortion opponent.The New York Times could not confirm the account, interview the woman or inspect the evidence that Gloria Allred, the celebrity lawyer, asserted was proof that the woman had a relationship with Mr. Walker.The woman told her story at a news conference with Ms. Allred, but did not appear on camera. Neither she nor Ms. Allred offered any evidence to back up the woman’s accusation that Mr. Walker, a Republican, had urged her to end her pregnancy even after she initially left an abortion clinic without going through with the procedure.The evidence provided included a taped message from a man Ms. Allred said was Mr. Walker calling from the Winter Olympics of 1992, where Mr. Walker competed in bobsled; a number of greeting cards signed “H”; and a blurry photo of a man who Ms. Allred said was Mr. Walker in a hotel room in Mankato, Minn. She also showed what she said was a receipt for that hotel, a Holiday Inn in the city where the Minnesota Vikings, Mr. Walker’s professional football team at the time, practiced.The woman, speaking remotely into the news conference, said she was so traumatized in 1993 after she had the abortion that she left her home in the Dallas area and did not return for 15 years.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Bracing for a Red Wave: Republicans were already favored to flip the House. Now they are looking to run up the score by vying for seats in deep-blue states.Pennsylvania Senate Race: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz clashed in one of the most closely watched debates of the midterm campaign. Here are five takeaways.Polling Analysis: If these poll results keep up, everything from a Democratic hold in the Senate and a narrow House majority to a total G.O.P. rout becomes imaginable, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Strategy Change: In the final stretch before the elections, some Democrats are pushing for a new message that acknowledges the economic uncertainty troubling the electorate.The woman said she was a registered independent who voted for Donald J. Trump, a Republican, in 2016 and 2020. She told her story, she said, to expose hypocrisy in Mr. Walker’s campaign message and because, she said, he lied in denying another woman’s account of his urging her to have an abortion by saying that he never signed cards with just his first initial, “H.”Shortly before the news conference, Mr. Walker broadly denied the claim at a campaign event in Dillard, Ga., about 100 miles north of Atlanta.“I’m done with this foolishness. I’ve already told people this is a lie and I’m not going to entertain it,” he said, suggesting that this was a reflection of Democratic jitters following his performance during the Senate debate against the Democratic incumbent, Senator Raphael Warnock, this month. “The Democrats will do and say whatever they can to win this seat.”Just weeks ago, another woman said Mr. Walker had paid for her to have an abortion in 2009 and urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. They ended their relationship after she refused, that woman, who also refused to be identified, told The Times in a series of interviews.Mr. Walker, who denied that account, has anchored his campaign on an appeal to social conservatives as an unwavering opponent of abortion even in cases of rape and incest. He has since wavered on his policy approach to abortion, saying in September that he would support a measure from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that would ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy and declaring his support during the Senate debate for Georgia’s new law that outlaws the procedure after six weeks.A spokesman for Mr. Walker did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the specifics of the new claim.Mr. Warnock’s campaign released a statement calling the new accusation “just the latest example of a troubling pattern we have seen play out again and again and again,” saying Mr. Walker has “a problem with the truth.”Mr. Walker has been dogged by a series of potentially damaging reports about his personal life since he began his campaign for Senate in 2021. In June, The Daily Beast reported that Mr. Walker, who has criticized absentee fathers in Black households, had fathered a child out of wedlock. Later that week, the outlet reported on two more children he had not previously mentioned publicly or to his campaign aides.Mr. Walker acknowledged an extramarital affair in his 2009 memoir, “Breaking Free: My Life With Dissociative Identity Disorder.” He described a relationship with a woman who lived in Irving, Tex., a Dallas suburb.“I just want to convey that I knew right from wrong and I did a very, very wrong thing that hurt my wife, another person and in the end me,” he wrote. More

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      Second woman says Herschel Walker pressured her to have abortion

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      Second woman says Herschel Walker pressured her to have abortionLawyer Gloria Allred introduces woman as Jane Doe who alleges anti-abortion candidate drove her to a clinic in the 1990s A new woman has claimed that Herschel Walker pressured her into having an abortion and drove her to a clinic to obtain one.On Wednesday, lawyer Gloria Allred – who has represented numerous alleged victims of sexual misconduct and assault – introduced to reporters a woman who alleges Walker, the anti-abortion Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, took her to an abortion clinic to have an abortion in the 1990s.Abortion rights take centre stage as Oz and Fetterman clash in Pennsylvania Senate debateRead moreAllred said that her client, whom she introduced as Jane Doe, began dating the former football player in 1987 and had an intimate relationship with him for several years.At the news conference, Allred presented evidence of hotel receipts, handwritten letters and a voice recording that Walker left Doe during their relationship.In 1993, Doe found that she was pregnant, according to her attorney. When she told Walker, he “clearly wanted her to have an abortion, and convinced her to do so. Our client alleges that Mr Walker gave her cash to pay for the abortion,” said Allred.In an emotional statement that Doe presented without revealing her face, she recalled how she felt “confused, uncertain and scared”.“I simply couldn’t go through with it. I left the clinic in tears,” she said.Doe then explained that Walker drove her again to the clinic and waited for her for hours until the abortion was complete.“I was devastated because I felt that I had been pressured into having an abortion,” Doe said, adding that she felt “naive” and that Walker “took advantage of me”.“The reason I am here today, is because he has publicly taken the position that he is ‘about life’ and against abortion under any circumstances, when, in fact, he pressured me to have an abortion and personally ensured that it occurred by driving me to the clinic and paid for it,” she said.“I do not believe that Herschel Walker is morally fit to be a US senator,” she said. “And that is the reason why I am speaking up and providing proof,” Doe said, adding that she was an independent and voted for Donald Trump twice.In response to to the new reports, Walker said: “I’m done with this foolishness. I’ve already told people this is a lie and I’m not going to entertain.”Walker has voiced strict anti-abortion policies but has already been accused of paying for an abortion for another woman.The Georgia Senate race is one of a group of contests that could be key to deciding control of the Senate in the midterm elections on 8 November.The Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock, was elected in 2020, and along with Jon Ossoff gave Democrats the seats they needed to split the Senate 50-50, and control it via the vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris.Warnock is a pastor at a church where the civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King once preached. Walker is a former college and NFL football star with a chequered business career who is endorsed by Donald Trump.Nationwide, Democrats hope the supreme court ruling on abortion will help motivate turnout as they seek to hold the House and Senate.On Wednesday morning, before Allred’s intervention, the polling website FiveThirtyEight gave Warnock a three-point lead.The other woman said Walker encouraged and paid for an abortion in 2009. Walker denied paying for the abortion, telling the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: “Had that happened, I would have said it, because it’s nothing to be ashamed of there. You know, people have done that, but I know nothing about it. And if I knew about it, I would be honest and talk about it, but I know nothing about that.”The same woman said he encouraged her to get a second abortion and had done “nothing” for their son.Walker has said he is in favour of a total abortion ban, in line with Republican policy in the aftermath of the US supreme court ruling which removed the right to abortion in June.On the debate stage earlier this month, Walker tried to deny being in favour of an outright ban and attacked Warnock for being a Baptist pastor but supporting abortion rights.TopicsRepublicansGeorgiaUS politicsUS SenateUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

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      Early voters in Georgia face obstacles under state’s new election law

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      Early voters in Georgia face obstacles under state’s new election lawUnlimited challenges to eligibility and poorly trained poll workers cause frustration in key gubernatorial and US Senate contests Jennifer Jones, a Morehouse School of Medicine PhD student, showed up to her precinct in Fulton county, Georgia, on the second day of early voting for the midterm elections. She was excited to cast her ballot for her chosen candidates in the gubernatorial and Senate races, Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock. However, when she reached the check-in station at the polling site, she was informed that she would be unable to cast a regular ballot because her validity as a voter was challenged.“When I handed in my ID, the poll worker said I was being challenged,” said Jones. “They said I had to complete a provisional ballot, but I wasn’t really comfortable doing that, so I didn’t get to cast my ballot that day.”Early voters in Arizona midterms report harassment by poll watchersRead moreUnder the state’s new Election Integrity Act, Georgia citizens can challenge a voter’s eligibility on the state’s voting rolls an unlimited number of times. Right-wing groups, spurred by baseless claims that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud, have mounted thousands of organized challenges across the state, putting even more pressure on the election process for voters, poll workers and election officials. While most have been dismissed already, more challenges cropped up ahead of early voting.In most cases, voters like Jones don’t know why their status is being challenged in the first place, causing even more confusion.“The poll worker didn’t tell me why I was being challenged, even after calling someone else for assistance,” said Jones. “They just kept telling me I would have to vote with a provisional ballot.”Georgia voters turned out in record numbers for the first week of early voting, casting their ballots in the two critical elections, the gubernatorial and Senate races. However, as the election progresses, the impact of Georgia’s new voting laws continues to unfold. Election and voter protection organizations across Georgia have been preparing for moments like this, working to educate voters on what to do if they experience issues when voting.“I felt discouraged, but I knew I needed to reach out to someone for help and knew I could call Fair Fight and get help,” said Jones.Fair Fight, a national voting rights organization based in Georgia, has used grassroots campaigning since its founding to educate voters on the resources at their disposal each election season. When Jones called Fair Fight, the organization connected her with Helen Butler and the Election Protection Project.“I informed [Helen Butler] what happened and told her that I had my ID and precinct card and everything,” said Jones. “She seemed surprised that they wouldn’t let me cast a regular ballot.”Butler, the executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, believes Jones’s ordeal points to a more significant issue this election season.“This whole thing, and the new law, is alienating more people about the election process,” says Butler. “Especially people like Ms Jones, who was targeted and shouldn’t have been, just because the poll worker wasn’t aware of the additional instructions from the secretary of state’s office.”These additional instructions from the secretary of state explain that counties should work in favor of the challenged voter, granting poll workers the ability to verify a voter’s residence at the precinct when provided with documentation of the voter’s address or by having the voter sign a residency affirmation form. Once a voter completes these steps, which can be done on the spot, the voter should then be given access to a regular ballot.However, Butler asserts that this process was not initially made clear. “The first notice they sent out was not very clear, but the second notice gave clearer guidance,” she said. “Somewhere along the line, maybe by the county not updating the poll workers, there is miscommunication.”To Butler and other voting rights organizers, these instances of miscommunication at the polls stem from the state’s new voting law.“SB202, this Election Integrity [Act], has highlighted that folks can now do unlimited challenges,” said Butler. “And though people have always been able to challenge the voting rolls, this again creates a problem and creates distrust and is ultimately trying to limit who has access to the ballot.”Jones is just one of the voters whose distrust of Georgia’s electoral process has grown this election season. “I do feel disenfranchised, especially as a Black voter, and because of the way I vote,” she said. “I know they offered a provisional ballot, but I just didn’t know if it would be counted properly.”Another aspect of the new voting law includes new rules surrounding provisional ballots. While Jones’s case would not necessarily fall under this aspect of the law, which states that provisional ballots submitted outside of a voter’s precinct will not be counted, she says her broader distrust of the electoral process deterred her from voting with a provisional ballot that day. Still, Jones knows the importance of seeing this process through and clearing the challenge against her voting eligibility. She still plans to vote this election.“My grandmother marched with Dr Martin Luther King; my family fought for this,” said Jones. “I am the next generation that she was fighting for, and I am not about to let up. I will not risk getting to cast my vote. I will not stop fighting, and I will not be complacent in the difficulty of this process.”TopicsUS newsThe fight for democracyGeorgiaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The Week in Political News

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      Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesVoter turnout in Georgia is far outperforming that of previous midterm elections, rivaling presidential-year figures. On the first day of early voting, more than 130,000 people cast ballots — a more than 85 percent increase from the same day in 2018, according to the secretary of state’s office. More

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      Lindsey Graham Must Testify in Georgia Elections Inquiry, Court Rules

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      A federal appeals court ruled that the senator must appear before the special grand jury that is investigating efforts to overturn Donald J. Trump’s election loss in Georgia.ATLANTA — A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that Senator Lindsey Graham must appear before the special grand jury that is investigating efforts by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn Mr. Trump’s election loss in Georgia, although the court set limits on the kinds of questions Mr. Graham could be asked.The ruling means that Mr. Graham, at some date after the Nov. 8 midterm elections, will most likely have to travel to the Fulton County courthouse in downtown Atlanta to answer questions about phone calls he made to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in the weeks after the 2020 election.In a court document issued this summer, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court wrote that Mr. Graham, in the course of those phone calls, “questioned Secretary Raffensperger and his staff about re-examining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.”Neither Mr. Graham’s media representative nor his lawyers could be reached for comment on Thursday, and a spokesman for Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, declined to comment. But the six-page ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, is a blow for Mr. Graham, the South Carolina Republican who transformed from a critic of Mr. Trump to an avid fan and his golfing partner over the course of Mr. Trump’s one term in office.Mr. Graham’s lawyers have argued that the senator made the calls to Mr. Raffensperger because he needed to “run down allegations of irregularities in Georgia” before he voted to certify that President Biden was the legitimate winner of the presidential election. The lawyers also said, among other things, that Mr. Graham was reviewing election-related issues in his role as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.Understand Georgia’s Investigation of Election InterferenceCard 1 of 5An immediate legal threat to Trump. More