Carl P. Leubsdorf: Looking into the future to forecast 2021
Summary: For the record, we predicted last year that Donald Trump would lose reelection but to Pete Buttigieg and that Joe Biden would become secretary of state! Who’s perfect?
Written By:
Carl P. Leubsdorf | 12:00 am, Dec. 31, 2020 ×
U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris speaks during an event to name President-elect Joe Biden s economic team on December 1, 2000, at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware.
Alex Wong/Getty Images/TNS
Wishing good riddance to 2020, it’s time for our annual not totally serious forecast for 2021.
For the record, we predicted last year that Donald Trump would lose reelection but to Pete Buttigieg and that Joe Biden would become secretary of state! Who’s perfect?
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Judge, Who Is Stacey Abrams Sister, Orders Georgia Counties To Keep Voter Rolls Dirty; Rules Against Voter Purge Prior to Runoff Election, Refuses to Recuse Herself, and related stories
Judge, Who Is Stacey Abrams Sister, Orders Georgia Counties To Keep Voter Rolls Dirty:
Stealing an election the old fashioned way. The classics never go A federal judge in Georgia on Monday ordered two counties to reverse a decision removing more than 4,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff elections that will decide control of the U.S. Senate.
The judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner the sister of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a prominent ally of President-elect Joe Biden who has led voter registration efforts across the state concluded that the counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations in the two counties.
What s True
U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner is the sister of Stacey Abrams, and ruled on a voter-registration case that was very similar to another case before a different district court in Georgia, which involved Abrams voting rights organization Fair Fight. What s False
Neither Abrams nor Fair Fight were a party to the specific case before Abrams Gardner in the Middle District of Georgia in December 2020. The case involving Abrams and Fair Fight was overseen by a different judge in a different court.
Origin
In December 2020, right-leaning observers and prominent Republican politicians cried foul after a federal court judge blocked attempts to remove thousands of names from voter rolls in Georgia, ahead of January’s two U.S. Senate run-off elections in the state.
Georgia Judge Rolls Back Order That Blocked Counties From Voter-Roll Clean Up
The federal judge who on Monday blocked two Georgia counties from removing voters from voter rolls eased her order just before midnight Wednesday.
District Court Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, an Obama appointee, ruled that Ben Hill County still cannot remove any voters from voter rolls but said the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registration can remove voters if they do not rely solely on the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address system.
The board must allow voters whose eligibility has been challenged to cast a provisional ballot in the Jan. 5, 2021, runoff elections. They also must advise the voter of specific evidence of ineligibility by phone and in writing by Jan. 6, and advise the voter of their right to be heard and present evidence in response to the findings.