Georgia judge rules certification of election results by county officials is ‘mandatory’
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(NEW YORK) With just weeks to go until the presidential election, a Georgia judge has ruled that certification of election results by county officials in the state is “mandatory” — a new ruling that is likely to be heralded by election experts amid rising fears that rogue election officials could seek to delay or decline to certify results after Election Day due to allegations of fraud or error.
“Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results,” the order states.
Judge Robert McBurney, as part of an ongoing election case, found that the law is clear: “the superintendent must certify and must do so by a certain time.”
“There are no exceptions,” he wrote in the Monday night ruling.
The ruling comes after Georgia’s controversial State Election Board recently passed new rules that some voting rights activists are concerned would cause chaos in the certification process. One of those new rules allows election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” prior to certification.
Specifically, McBurney’s ruling Monday noted that certification by the county superintendents must occur, even in the case where there are concerns about fraud or error.
“While the superintendent must investigate concerns about miscounts and must report those concerns to a prosecutor if they persist after she investigates, the existence of those concerns, those doubts, and those worries is not cause to delay or decline certification,” McBurney wrote. “That is simply not an option for this particular ministerial function in the superintendent’s broader portfolio of functions.”
Broadly, McBurney noted that the election officials must still certify the results, but report concerns to authorities:
“And if in the course of her canvassing, counting, and investigating, a superintendent should discover what appears to her to be fraud or systemic error, she still must count all votes — despite the perceived fraud — and report her concerns about fraud or error to the appropriate district attorney,” the judge wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Tuesday failed for a second time to advance an in vitro fertilization (IVF) protection bill by a vote of 51-44.
The legislation needed 60 votes to advance. Republican Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voted in favor of the bill along with all Democrats.
The legislation was largely dismissed by Republicans as a political stunt meant to drum up support for vulnerable Democrats.
“Republicans support IVF. Full stop. No question about that,” Republican Whip John Thune said during a news conference shortly before the vote. “This is not an attempt to make law. This is not an attempt to get an outcome or to legislate. This is simply an attempt by Democrats to try to create a political issue where there isn’t one.”
Collins and Murkowski voted for Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth’s Right to IVF Act when it failed to advance in June. But as reproductive rights continue to be a flashpoint in the upcoming election, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dared Republicans to block the bill again.
“If the Senate votes no today and strikes IVF protections down yet again, it will be further proof that Project 2025 is alive and well,” Schumer said on the Senate floor earlier Tuesday. “Remember Donald Trump’s Project 2025 is tied to the Heritage Foundation, one of the most important and extreme conservative think tanks in the country, and earlier this year, they came out fiercely against today’s bill protecting IVF.”
The vote came after Trump on the campaign trail reaffirmed his support for IVF.
During a town hall in August, Trump said he and his team had been exploring ways to help those wanting in vitro fertilization.
“I’ve been looking at it, and what we’re going to do is for people that are using IVF, which is fertilization … the government is going to pay for it, or we’re going to get — we’ll mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that,” Trump said then.
Then, during his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump said he has “been a leader on IVF.”
In response, Schumer said he’d again bring the bill to the floor for a vote to give Republicans another chance to support it. It would need 60 votes to advance.
“We have seen the Republican Party’s nominee for president claim to be “a leader in fertilization” and come out in support of expanding access to IVF by requiring insurance companies to cover IVF treatment — a key provision included in the Right to IVF Act,” Schumer wrote in a letter to his colleagues on Sunday. “So, we are going to give our Republican colleagues another chance to show the American people where they stand.”
“So to my Republican colleagues today, you get a second chance to either stand with families struggling with infertility or stand with Project 2025, which aims to make reproductive freedoms extinct,” Schumer said.
The Right to IVF Act combines several Democratic bills. It establishes a nationwide right for access to IVF, expands fertility treatments for veterans, and seeks to increase affordability for fertility care.
Efforts to advance this bill accelerated over the summer after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos are children, which temporarily upended IVF access in the state.
But Republicans, who say they support IVF and note it is not currently illegal to access it in any state, criticized the bill before the vote in June, calling it a political stunt and opposing the legislation as being an overreach.
Before the vote, Republicans attempted to unanimously pass a separate piece of IVF legislation. That bill, sponsored by Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would have prohibited states from receiving Medicare funding if they banned access to IVF.
Their bill was blocked from advancing by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who said the GOP offer was inadequate.
“I have been perfectly clear about the glaring issue with this Republican bill,” Murray said on the Senate floor. “The cold hard reality is that this Republican bill does nothing to meaningfully protect IVF from the biggest threats from lawmakers and anti-abortion extremists all over this country. It would still allow states to regulate IVF out of existence.”
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday evening that House Republicans from across the conference struck a deal to raise the threshold for the motion to vacate — a procedure rank-and-file lawmakers can use to remove the speaker. The new agreement makes it harder to remove a speaker from the position.
The agreement would raise the threshold to force a vote on ousting a speaker from one member to nine members.
While the nine-member threshold makes it harder to oust a speaker, it does not completely remove the threat.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland and Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota — who negotiated the deal on Wednesday — appeared with Johnson at a press conference where they explained the change.
“We had an opportunity to set the motion to vacate at a higher than number one, that motion to vacate will be set at nine in return for getting rid of some amendments that probably would have divided this conference,” Johnson said.
He said the agreement allows Republicans to be “in a better position to move forward with the Republican agenda to make sure that Speaker Johnson, South Dakota Senate Leader John Thune and our President Donald Trump have an opportunity to go forward.”
“For me this is exactly how we’re supposed to come together,” Johnson said.
Harris said the change allows the conference to execute on Trump’s plans.
“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and move forward together to deliver on the President’s agenda. That’s it,” Harris said.
Earlier this year, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, threatening to oust Johnson just months after he ascended to the speakership. When she officially triggered a vote on her motion to oust Johnson, Democrats joined almost all Republicans to overwhelmingly reject her move.
House Republicans will are huddling Thursday morning where they’ll still have to ratify the agreement.
Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to stay on as the House’s top job. On Wednesday, he said he was “delighted” and “honored” to be the nominee for speaker, saying “we’ll head into Jan. 3 to make all that happen.”
The chamber will vote on their rules package for the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2025, following the election of the speaker on the floor.
(WASHINGTON) — Outgoing West Virginia Independent Sen. Joe Manchin said Tuesday he won’t back Vice President Kamala Harris’ White House bid after she came out in favor of changing Senate rules to pass abortion protection laws.
“I’m not endorsing her,” Manchin told reporters Tuesday.
Earlier, Manchin was more vociferous about Harris’ announcement that she’d be in favor of scrapping the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster to pass a law reviving the abortion protections that existed under Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that was scrapped in 2022.
“Shame on her,” Manchin, who is retiring and left the Democratic Party earlier this year, told CNN. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together.”
Outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., another retiring Democrat-turned-independent and filibuster defender, also panned the idea, saying it would open the door to further restrictions by a future Republican Senate majority.
“To state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide,” Sinema posted on X. “What an absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea.”
Harris, who along with President Joe Biden, had supported changing Senate rules to help restore Roe v. Wade’s protections, which allow abortions until a fetus is viable. She reiterated her stance in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.
“I’ve been very clear: I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,’ Harris said. “Fifty-one votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”
Harris’ comments come as she pivots to the center to win over undecided voters, but abortion remains a key issue that fires up the Democratic base and helped the vice president find her footing in office. She has been particularly vocal on the issue after reports of two Georgia women’s deaths seemingly due to delayed treatment after undergoing medication abortions.
Still, it’s unclear if Democrats would have the votes to pass any abortion protections, as their 51-49 majority hangs by a thread this November due to a formidable map that has them defending seats in several purple states and the red states of Montana and Ohio.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer was circumspect on what kind of legislation Democrats would push, only saying Tuesday that “it’s something our caucus will discuss in the next session of Congress.”
Former President Donald Trump celebrated Manchin’s saying he wouldn’t endorse Harris.
“Congratulations to Senator Joe Manchin for not endorsing Radical Kamala Harris because of her DEATH WISH for the Filibuster and the Rule of Law. Joe knows that only the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, can protect our Country, our People, and Make America Great Again,” Trump posted on his social media platform.
