The Georgia Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Democrat-run Cobb County cannot accept thousands of absentee ballots that arrive after the Election Day deadline. Cobb County announced on Thursday that as of Oct. 30, “more than 3,000 absentee ballots requested by last Friday’s deadline had not been mailed.”
Cobb County Board of Elections Chairwoman Tori Silas said that the county was “taking every possible step to get these ballots to the voters who requested them” but that the county was “unprepared for the surge in requests and lacked the necessary equipment to process the ballots quickly.” While absentee ballot requests had “been averaging 440 per day … that number surged to 750 per day” during the final week to request an absentee ballot, the county said.
To remedy the issue, the county announced on Thursday that it would overnight the late ballots for a Friday morning (Nov. 1) delivery with “prepaid express return envelopes to ensure voters can return them by Tuesday’s deadline.”
But on Friday, the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a suit arguing that, despite the county taking steps to get the ballots delivered to voters by Friday, voters would be “disenfranchised.”
Cobb County Judge Robert Flournoy bought the bogus argument, ruling on Friday that the 3,000 or so voters who received a late mail-in ballot could return those ballots before 5 p.m. on Nov. 8 — three full days after Election Day — as long as the ballots were postmarked by 7 p.m. on Nov. 5.
The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party appealed the ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court, arguing that state law mandates the return of absentee ballots on Election Day and that since Cobb County paid for express return postage and overnighted the ballots to voters in order to — as Cobb County said — “ensure voters can return [the ballots] by Tuesday’s deadline,” there is no need to extend the date for acceptance.
The appeal also argued that Georgia “does not guarantee a right to vote by mail.” Rather, “Voters still have many options to vote, including by voting in person or delivering their absentee ballots in person.”
The Georgia Supreme Court agreed, granting the RNC and Georgia GOP’s motion to pause the lower court ruling. This means any late-arriving absentee ballots will not be counted. The court also ordered the late-arriving ballots sent in by the 3,000 voters to be segregated until further notice from the court.
Voters who did not receive their mail-in ballot may vote in person on Tuesday.
“Democrat-run Cobb County wanted to accept 3,000 absentee ballots AFTER the Election Day deadline. We took this case to the Georgia Supreme Court. We just got word that we WON the case. Election Day is Election Day — not the week after,” Whatley said.
“We will keep fighting, keep winning, and keep sharing updates.”
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
Former President Donald Trump’s outreach to minority voters and willingness to take tough questions is starting to pay off, according to Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley on Newsmax.
“I think it’s terribly important that we have a former president who has done events in the Bronx, in downtown Philadelphia,” Whatley told “Newsline.” “He has been to Detroit, then he goes to this [National Association of Black Journalists] event in Chicago and takes the tough questions. You have to ask yourself, where was Kamala Harris? If there was ever an event for her, this would have been it and she was not there.’
“She will not talk to the press. She will not take any tough questions. Donald Trump is communicating directly to every American. He’s reaching out to every single community. And I think it’s going to pay off.‘
“We are starting to see already massive shifts in Hispanic voters and Black voters and Asian American voters that are coming from the Democratic Party and supporting Donald Trump 20 points higher than they did back in 2020, because he is listening to them and cares about the issues that they care about,” he added.
When asked why the national conversation pivots so often to the topic of race, Whatley said it is because “that’s what the Democratic Party wants to talk about” and “that’s what Kamala Harris wants to talk about.”
“What Donald Trump wants to talk about is how to make America better for every American family,” Whatley said. “How are we going to lift this economy up so that it can lift every family up? How are we going to protect our southern border? How are we going to shut down this immigrant invasion that we have seen coming across into Texas and Arizona?‘
“What is it that we’re going to do on the world stage? Under Donald Trump, China was in check, Russia was in check, and we didn’t have the attacks in the Middle East that we’re watching right now. The whole Middle East is really on fire. So, we want to get back to a strong America. I think the entire country does and those are the issues that the voters care about. So, that’s what we’re going to continue to talk about.”
Nicole Wells, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
President Joe Biden campaigned in swing-state Wisconsin on Monday to sell his latest student loan bailout program, a multibillion-dollar election-year bribe that delivers a shaky middle finger to the Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, the Democrat’s friends in the accomplice media regurgitated White House talking points on Biden’s Plan B loan- and interest-forgiveness initiative without mentioning the cost to federal debt-burdened U.S. taxpayers.
Under the proposal, debt would be canceled for people already eligible for certain federal student loan forgiveness programs. It would also cancel debt for anyone who began repaying their undergraduate loans more than 20 years ago, or graduate loans more than 25 years ago…
According to a press release, the plan would eliminate all accrued interest for 23 million people and cancel out debt for 4 million people.
The federally subsidized public radio outlet didn’t bother with details like the price tag to taxpayers. Neither did the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in its promotional piece for Biden’s new bailout. At least The New York Times, while performing its role of Biden administration water carrier, acknowledged, “Officials did not say how much the new plan would cost in coming years, but critics have said it could increase inflation and add to the federal debt by billions of dollars.”
How could it not? The New York Post estimated Biden’s latest bribe could rival his last failed student debt forgiveness program, a $400 billion-plus unconstitutional behemoth.
Who is going to pay to shrink student loan debt for 23 million borrowers? The complete bailout of 4 million Americans? Debt buyouts of $5,000 or better for 10 million college loan debt holders (More than $50 billion on that account alone)?
Taxpayers. Taxpayers with student loan debt. Taxpayers without student loan debt. Taxpayers of all kinds, particularly future taxpayers. Because unless Biden and Congress suddenly wake up and begin wholesale cutting government programs to deal with a $34.6 trillion U.S. debt — and rapidly rising — this borrower forgiveness plan will be borne by today’s consumers and future generations.
“We’re giving people a chance to make it,” Biden told an assemblage of liberals gathered in a gymnasium at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin’s capital city. The Democrat will need to roll up huge vote totals again in the big-government city and left-heavy Dane County if he wants to win Wisconsin, a critical battleground he won by a razor-thin margin in 2020.
“Today, too many Americans — especially young people — are saddled with unsustainable debts in exchange for college,” Biden said in a 15-minute mumbling speech as a historic solar eclipse darkened wide swaths of the nation’s skies. An ominous sign?
‘Presidential Do-Over’
You didn’t need special glasses to see that Biden’s bailout, coming less than seven months before the presidential election, is designed to help bailout the octogenarian’s slumping poll numbers. The most recent RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Biden and former President Donald Trump in a dead heat nationally. But Trump leads Biden in six of the seven swing states, which have a significant say over who will occupy the White House next year, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. Biden leads only in Wisconsin, by 3 percentage points, according to the poll. Trump leads by as much as 8 points in North Carolina, and as few as 2 points in Michigan.
“Biden wants to use your tax dollars to buy votes because more and more young people are supporting President Trump,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. He called Biden’s trip to Wisconsin the Bankrupting American Tour.
“Biden’s student loan bailout for the wealthy was already struck down by the Supreme Court and his policies are driving historic inflation,” Whatley added.
Indeed. Biden’s previous $400 billion student debt bailout order aimed at 43 million borrowers was released in the summer of 2022, months before the midterm elections. The Supreme Court struck down his executive fiat, declaring it an unconstitutional overreach of the executive branch. Biden has since dabbled around the edges, waving his presidential pen to knock out smaller amounts of outstanding student loan payments.
The Times called it a “presidential do-over.” That’s not a thing. At least it doesn’t appear to be a legal thing.
Last month, Kansas led 11 states in a lawsuit against Biden’s so-called SAVE Plan, which has canceled loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, according to the White House. The states charge that the president has again overstepped his authority and defied the Supreme Court.
The Job Creators Network Foundation sued the Biden administration over its debt cancellation initiative struck down by the high court. The lawsuit, filed in Texas federal court, blocked the bailout at the district level and halted the application process, “allowing the legal challenge to go to the Supreme Court,” according to the conservative advocacy organization.
‘A Blank Check’
Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network, said Biden’s latest bailout suffers from the same fundamental problems. It illegally bypasses Congress and does nothing to hold the nation’s colleges and universities accountable for making much of the existing mess through exorbitant higher education costs.
“In fact, every time this administration forgives more loans, it’s a blank check to these universities telling them to keep raising their tuition like they have been and overcharging these students,” Parker told me Monday afternoon on “The Vicki McKenna Show.”
“The Biden administration is lawlessly ignoring the Supreme Court and Congress by launching another massive student loan bailout program… He is acting as a King, not a president,” – @Elaine_Parkerhttps://t.co/dI20l0P6Ic
— Job Creators Network (@JobCreatorsUSA) April 8, 2024
Biden’s boss, President Barack Obama, drove the massive federal takeover of the student loan program that has proved so costly. Former U.S. Rep. John J. Faso laid out the Obama-inflicted wound in September 2022. The New York Republican noted that Obama promoted the federal takeover of student lending as part of the bill that brought us Obamacare — the Affordable Care Act — in 2010. Another example of why you don’t pull a Pelosi and pass a bill “so you can find out what’s in it.”
“At that time, Obama proclaimed that by cutting out the ‘middleman’, taxpayers would save $68 billion. Banks would no longer underwrite student loans and the federal government would directly lend to students,” Faso wrote. “Every one of Obama’s promises turned out to be untrue. The program didn’t save any money. Loan defaults increased. Colleges accelerated increases in tuitions and fees and student debt skyrocketed. Today’s student loan mess was caused largely by Obama’s failed program.”
As he pitched his new attempted end-around of the Supreme Court ruling, Biden surely hoped the student loan debt-laden “folks” in swing-state Wisconsin would repay his taxpayer-funded generosity with their votes in November. The White says the new program could take effect “early this fall,” or not long before the election, the New York Post reported. Impeccable timing.
As Parker noted, Congress passed bipartisan legislation last year blocking Biden’s student loan bailouts by executive fiat. Biden vetoed it. She said other reforms are stuck in the Senate.
“Senate Democrats do not want to take it up and discuss anything remotely close to solutions because they are in an election year and their goal is to buy these votes,” she said.
Listen to the full interview with Elaine Parker of the Job Creators Network Foundation.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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