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      Officials predict close count in Georgia elections as turnout exceeds expectations

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      Georgia officials were bedding in for a long night of vote counting on Tuesday as polls closed in the two critical runoff races that will determine control of the US Senate, and with it the tone and ambition of the Biden administration.Early data gleaned after polls closed across the state at 7pm pointed to exceptionally large total turnout compared with previous runoffs. The two Democratic contenders – the former documentary film-maker Jon Ossoff and the Atlanta pastor Raphael Warnock – are attempting to unseat Georgia’s two incumbent Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively.Tell-tale signs also suggested that the count could be close and potentially drawn out over hours or even beyond Tuesday night.Throughout Tuesday, polling stations across the state reported a steady stream of voters who defied a devastating surge in coronavirus infections in Georgia to vote in person. Individual Georgians went to extreme lengths to take part in what have been described as elections that could set the course of America for a generation.Tyler Perry, the Atlanta-based actor and film-maker, flew back to the city to cast his vote after he failed to receive an absentee ballot.According to state election officials, the number of Georgians who had cast their votes in advance of election day – either through absentee ballots or by early voting – reached 3.1 million. That, on its own, smashed the standing record set in 2008 for a Senate runoff in Georgia which attracted a total of 2.1 million voters.By the time the final votes are counted, election officials suggested the total might reach almost double the 2008 record.The enormous electoral energy swirling around the runoffs was reflected in key counties where the results of both races could be won or lost. Dekalb county, which covers the eastern suburbs of Atlanta, saw turnout on Tuesday exceed even that of the presidential election day in November.For participation in runoff elections to surpass that of a presidential race was extremely rare, and was welcomed as a positive signal by Democrats given that Biden soundly defeated Trump in Dekalb county by 83% to 16% in November. However, a similar story of large turnout was also being told in key Republican-leaning counties, such as Forsyth county and Cherokee county where long lines were witnessed outside the polling places.Stacey Abrams, who has been seminal in building a Democratic ground game through her group Fair Fight, told CNN shortly before the polls closed that the steady turnout indicated high levels of voter interest all through the state. But she added that both parties appeared to be attracting voters in large numbers, pointing to a close battle.“We haven’t seen the deluge. We see a very steady flow of voters on both sides of the aisle, which indicates it’s going to be a very tight race,” Abrams said.Massive turnout across early, absentee and election-day voting was a reflection of the exceptionally high stakes of the two runoffs. Their outcome will determine which of the two main parties controls the US Senate.Democrats need to win both races if they are to balance the chamber at 50/50 seats across the aisle. An even split would hand Kamala Harris, the vice president-elect, the deciding tie-breaker vote and with it the ability to shape the Senate’s legislative program.The president-elect himself summed up the high stakes on the eve of election day at a rally in Atlanta. He told the crowd that “one state can chart the course not just for the next four years, but for the next generation”.Fears of trouble or even violence outside polling stations appeared not to have materialised. Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, told CNN that “we have never seen an election is more secure and has had more integrity.”His fellow Republican official, Gabriel Sterling, said that incidents of difficulties with voting mechanisms were passingly few. At a press conference, he said that only 0.1% of scanning machines across the state had failed to work while 0.02% of counting machines had to be replaced.Cutting across both parties herculean efforts to get their supporters to the polls on Tuesday was the mercurial influence of Donald Trump. The president continues to refuse to concede defeat in the presidential election, and has persisted in a campaign of falsehoods targeting Georgia with unfounded claims of voter fraud.Trump lit a fuse under the double runoffs on Saturday when he called Raffensperger and tried to cajole him into overturning the certified results of the presidential race. The conversation was taped and leaked, and has led to calls for Trump to be prosecuted for election crimes.The president’s antics have left some Republicans in Georgia fretting that his claims that his victory was “stolen” would dissuade party supporters from turning up at the polls on Tuesday. But it remained to be seen just how much impact his incendiary interventions would make, and in what direction.The Republican contestants have attempted to move beyond Trump’s baseless complaint about the presidential count and focus their campaigns on what they have depicted as the “radical socialism” of their Democratic rivals. The airwaves have been flooded with unprecedented numbers of political adverts on both sides, with the campaigns of the four candidates jointly splurging more than $833m on the state according to the Center for Responsive Politics.Nonetheless Loeffler, the richest member of the Senate who also prides herself as being the chamber’s most conservative, has announced that she will vote to challenge the electoral college results at a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. More

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      Facebook restarts political ad ban in Georgia following runoff votes

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      Facebook has announced it will again ban political advertising targeting users in the state of Georgia, following the election there on Tuesday.The social media company said that, starting on Wednesday, Georgia users would again be subject to the US-wide political ad ban instated following the 3 November presidential vote. Facebook had temporarily lifted the ban in Georgia ahead of the runoff elections to allow political messaging to reach more voters.“Following the Georgia runoff elections, Georgia will re-join the existing nationwide pause on social issue, elections and political ads,” Facebook said in a blogpost.“This is part of our ongoing efforts to reduce the potential for confusion or abuse,” the company told advertisers in an email reviewed by Reuters.Facebook and Google had introduced pauses on political ads after the November presidential election as part of measures to combat misinformation and other abuses on the platforms. Google lifted its pause in December, saying it no longer considered the post-election period to be a “sensitive event”.Facebook lifted its own ad ban on 15 December exclusively for the state of Georgia, due to “feedback from experts and advertisers across the political spectrum about the importance of expressing voice” and using Facebook to reach voters ahead of Georgia’s runoff elections. For the rest of the country, the ban remained.The change announced on Tuesday means any ads about the Georgia runoff elections would be paused and any advertisers who were previously allowed to run ads about the Georgia runoff elections would not be able to create new political ads.It comes after it was discovered that Republican politicians and other operatives were using advertising on Facebook to target Georgia voters with misinformation in the final days ahead of the vote.A report from the global human rights group Avaaz found a number of ads on Facebook sponsored by Republicans that featured misinformation or falsehoods meant to sway voter opinion. One sponsored by the Senate Leadership Fund claims the Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff is “threatening to defund the police”, which he is not. Another from the Republican party run in December accused the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, of scheming to replace the president-elect, Joe Biden, with the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris.Nearly half of these false ads were shared by political candidates in the race, who are exempt from Facebook’s fact checking rules. Facebook has come under fire for the broad exemptions it grants politicians who advertise on its platform. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has defended the policy, saying Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth in political scenarios.Critics of Facebook say the spread of lies ahead of the Georgia election underscore how ineffective the company’s measures to address these issues have been. The company’s oversight board, introduced in late 2020, was meant to adjudicate disputes regarding content. But the group is not able to take down content quickly, limiting its effectiveness in breaking news situations. A group of academics and civil rights leaders critical of Facebook, calling themselves the Real Facebook Oversight Board, say the misinformation exposed in Georgia this week is proof there is more to be done.“The Facebook Oversight Board is complicit in a misinformation campaign in Georgia,” the group said in a statement. “They must do better, and Facebook needs to be held accountable for their failure to protect voters from disinformation.”Reuters contributed to this report More

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      Georgia voters head to polls in critical Senate runoffs

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      Georgia voters headed to the polls on Tuesday for the final day of voting in a critical election that will determine which party controls the US Senate and what Joe Biden can achieve in the first two years of his presidency.After she cast her ballot on the chilly morning in Atlanta, Stephanie Aluko stood outside her polling place and noted how remarkable it was that the entire world was paying attention to her state.“It made people in Georgia see how important it actually is to vote,” she said outside Antioch Baptist church, where a steady stream of voters were able to quickly cast their ballots. “If the whole world is looking at you and paying attention to you, suddenly, maybe your vote matters.”Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock are trying to oust Georgia’s incumbent Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively. If Democrats win, they will win complete control of the US Congress, (the Senate would be evenly split with Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect, casting the tie-breaking vote) allowing Biden to enact an ambitious policy agenda on items such as voting rights and the environment.If Republicans win even one seat, they will maintain their majority in the Senate, giving them a powerful veto in government and limiting what Democrats can achieve. A record amount of money has poured into the race, a reflection of its high stakes.The race is also a crucial test of a new emerging political power in Georgia. Long considered a conservative bastion, Joe Biden carried the state in November, the first Democrat to do so in nearly 30 years. The changing electorate is also being driven by efforts from Stacey Abrams and other grassroots groups, many led by Black women, to organize and mobilize voters of color.“To be able to be part of this specific election is memorable because I feel like my vote actually counted this time,” said Gabi Strode, 27, who also voted at Antioch Baptist church on Tuesday morning. “It’s surreal, kind of.”Georgia Democrats have not won a statewide runoff election in decades, according to ABC News, as Democratic turnout typically drops in the second race. But ahead of Tuesday, more than 3 million people had voted early, a record for a runoff election, with significant numbers in Democratic-leaning areas. Black voters have also consistently made up a higher percentage of the early electorate than they did at the same point ahead of the November general election, according to Ryan Anderson, who analyzes Georgia voter data and publishes to the website georgiavotes.comThe early vote data showed Republicans needed to have strong turnout on election day in order to win, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.Meanwhile, there was a jolt in the lead-up to election day after the Washington Post published a recorded phone call in which Donald Trump, who lost Georgia by 11,779 votes, pressured Georgia election officials to change the results from the November election to make him the winner in the state. At a rally in Georgia on Monday evening, the president continued to falsely claim that he won more votes than Biden in the state.Several Republicans have backed Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, and several, including Loeffler, plan to object to Congress’s certification of electors in the presidential race on Wednesday“It makes me angry,” Shirley Rosser, 64, a voter in Atlanta said of Trump’s false claims about voter fraud. “It makes me want to kick his behind.”Polls are open until 7pm ET in Georgia and voters are entitled to cast a ballot as long as they are lined up by then. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s top election official, predicted there would be an election result on Wednesday morning, though it could take longer as election workers count absentee ballots. Experts are again urging patience in processing the results – since it may take longer for Democratic-leaning areas with large populations to report vote totals, it may appear that Republican candidates are ahead before all votes are counted.If the race is close, there will probably be an aggressive legal effort to challenge ballots in the days to come.During a rally in Riverdale, Georgia, about 20 minutes outside of Atlanta, on Monday, Warnock used the possibility of post-election litigation to motivate his supporters.“We need to win by a comfortable margin. Because, you know, funny things go on,” he said. More

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      Georgia Senate runoff elections – live results

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      Voters in the state of Georgia are back to the polls today to cast their ballots in two runoff elections that will determine control of the US Senate. This will significantly affect the extent to which President-elect Joe Biden will be able implement his agenda.

      Why these elections matter
      In the November general election the Democrats maintained their hold on the House of Representatives, but fell short of the 51 seats needed to retake the Senate, where the Republicans have had a majority for the past six years.
      Tom McCarthy said: “Control of the US Senate is on the line. If the Democrats win both races, the president-elect will gain a big opportunity to build a progressive legacy. If Democrats lose one or both races, the country will enter at least a two-year period of divided government, with the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, retaining power and likely frustrating Biden’s agenda.
      “If Democrats win both races, the Senate would be split 50/50, but Democrats would effectively control the body with Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect, in her role as president of the Senate, breaking any ties in a strict party-line vote.
      “The runoff races are being held in accordance with state election laws because no candidate in either race won 50% of the vote in the November elections.”
      Who are the candidates?
      Tom McCarthy said: “The Republican candidates include one sitting senator – the wealthy appointee Kelly Loeffler, 50 – and one senator whose term has just ended, David Perdue, 71.
      “Challenging the Republicans are fresh faces on the Democratic side. Documentary film-maker Jon Ossoff, 33, a former congressional staffer and failed House candidate, is running to replace Perdue, while Atlanta pastor and first-time candidate Rev Raphael Warnock, 51, is running to unseat Loeffler.” More

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      Josh Hawley dodges question during Fox News grilling on election challenge

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      A prominent Republican senator has declined to clearly answer a question about whether he is involved in a bid to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election that Democrat Joe Biden won convincingly in November.Asked if he was trying to “overturn the election” and keep Donald Trump in power, Missouri senator Josh Hawley told Fox News: “That depends what happens on Wednesday.”That is when Congress will meet to count Joe Biden’s 306-232 electoral college victory, which has been certified by all 50 states. Formal objections due to be raised by Hawley, around a dozen other senators and more than 100 Republicans in the House will not overturn the result – as Trump and his supporters hope they will.Democrats hold the House, guaranteeing defeat there, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and other senior Republicans in that chamber also oppose the objections.Speaking on Monday night, Hawley at first avoided questions about whether he was trying to overturn an election and thereby disenfranchise millions of Americans, insisting he was objecting to the handling of the presidential election in states including Pennsylvania.“I just want to pin you down,” anchor Bret Baier said, eventually, “on on what you’re trying to do. Are you trying to say that as of 20 January [inauguration day] that President Trump will be president?”“Well,” said Hawley, “that depends on what happens on Wednesday. I mean, this is why we have to debate.”Baier answered: “No it doesn’t. The states, by the constitution, they certify the election, they did certify it by the constitution. Congress doesn’t have the right to overturn the certification, at least as most experts read it.”“Well,” Hawley said, “Congress is directed under the 12th amendment to count the electoral votes, there’s a statute that dates back to the 1800s, 19th century, that says there is a right to object, there’s a right to be heard, and there’s also [the] certification right.”Baier countered: “It’s from 1876, senator, and it’s the Tilden-Hayes race, in which there were three states that did not certify their electors. So Congress was left to come up with this system this commission that eventually got to negotiate a grand bargain.”That bargain left a Republican president, Rutherford Hayes, in power in return for an end to Reconstruction after the civil war. In August, the historian Eric Foner told the Guardian: “Part of the deal was the surrender of the rights of African Americans. I’m not sure that’s a precedent we want to reinvigorate, you know?”Baeir continued: “But now all of the states have certified their elections. As of 14 December. So it doesn’t by constitutional ways, open a door to Congress to overturn that, does it?”“My point,” Hawley said, “is this is my only opportunity during this process to raise an objection and to be heard. I don’t have standing to file lawsuits.”Trump’s campaign has filed more than 50 lawsuits challenging electoral results, losing the vast majority and being dismissed by the supreme court.Hawley dodged a subsequent question about whether his own White House ambitions are the real motivation for his objection – as they seem to be for other senators looking to appease the Trumpist base of the party.Also on Monday night, activists from the group ShutDownDC held what they called an “hour-long vigil” at Hawley’s Washington home. Demanding he drop his objection, they said they sang, lit candles and delivered a copy of the US constitution.Hawley, in Missouri at the time, complained that “Antifa scumbags” had “threatened my wife and newborn daughter, who can’t travel. They screamed threats, vandalized, and tried to pound open our door.” More

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      'I hope Mike Pence comes through for us': Trump puts vice president under pressure – video

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      At a Georgia rally the night before closely contested Senate runoffs, Donald Trump repeated false claims about election fraud and called on his vice president, Mike Pence, to ‘come through’ for him on Wednesday when he presides over a joint session of Congress that is set to confirm Joe Biden’s victory. Trump said he was going to ‘fight like hell’ to remain in the White House.’Fight like hell’: grievance and denialism rule at Trump Georgia rallyTrump protesters warned not to carry guns as Washington DC calls up National Guard Continue reading… More

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      Trump protesters warned not to carry guns as Washington DC calls up National Guard

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      DC police chief says ahead of inauguration protests ‘there are people intent on coming to our city armed’The US capital has mobilised the National Guard ahead of planned protests by Donald Trump supporters in the lead-up to the congressional vote affirming Joe Biden’s election victory.Trump’s supporters are planning to rally on Tuesday and Wednesday, seeking to bolster the president’s unproven claims of widespread voter fraud. Continue reading… More