Claiming this is due to “Robert E Lee’s birthday” is a complete red herring and disingenuous. Here’s what’s actually going on.
▪️In 2016, the Georgia legislature passed a bill which restricted early voting on Saturdays falling either on a holiday or following a holiday on Thursday or Friday.
https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20152016/162401
▪️Next Saturday happens to follow 2 state holidays. Thanksgiving on Thursday, and a generic “State Holiday” on Friday. This used to be called “Robert E Lee’s Birthday” but was renamed in 2015. Lee’s birthday is actually on Jan 19, but Georgia traditionally celebrated it after Thanksgiving.
https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/confederate-memorial-day-disappears-from-2016-georgia-holiday-calendars/ef2nD9pIa8itUbrEKhBbvL/
▪️Thus, even if Georgia abolished the “State Holiday” formerly known as Robert E. Lee’s birthday, the law still calls for the restriction because of Thanksgiving! The only reason to bring up Lee is to be disingenuous and misleading, without providing that context.
▪️The reason this is now an issue is because last year the Georgia legislature moved runoff elections to 4 weeks after Election Day instead of 9 weeks, which created the conflict. This even confused the Secretary of State, who initially said there would be Sat voting until his office realized the law prohibited it.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-holidays-prevent-saturday-voting-before-us-senate-runoff/Q7WG5X7T55AIJEJYLEOJ6JLQ6M/
▪️Democrats have sued Georgia, claiming that this law shouldn’t apply to runoffs, but for now the SoS has ordered no voting on the Sat following Thanksgiving per the law as written. We’ll see how the courts rule.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/nov/15/georgia-sued-over-ban-on-saturday-voting-before-us/
▪️There is still plenty of early voting opportunities, as well as absentee ballots and, of course, the normal election day voting for the runoff election. Just no early Saturday voting after Thanksgiving.
It’s bizarre to see them seesaw back and forth that Trump is totally clueless and aloof, just golfing all day, then all of a sudden he’s a dangerous king/dictator who’s diligently plotting to seize absolute power.
▪️This one is frustrating because, while it’s nice to see the vigor and speed that DOGE is acting with, they’re also sloppy with some of their findings. This is not some bombshell, millions of dead people’s SS numbers aren’t being paid out to fraudsters.
▪️This problem has been known for some time, you can read an inspector general’s report from 2015 about millions of names on the SS “numident” not being correctly annotated for deaths, even though they were older than 112 (the oldest known American at the time).
https://oig-files.ssa.gov/audits/full/A-06-14-34030_0.pdf
▪️There are innocent explanations for some of these. Expatriates that died outside the country, for example. Or immigrants given temporary work permit who returned to their country, people issued new numbers for various reasons, etc. However, most are simply due to the govt not diligently keeping track of deaths.
▪️It’s embarrassing that the govt has millions of numbers on the numident that are ...
