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Georgia Court Signs Off On Saturday Vote Following Lawsuit By Warnock, Democrats

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


A state judge in Georgia has issued a ruling favorable to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

According to Bloomberg News, the judge on Friday agreed to allow voting on a Saturday following Thanksgiving after Warnock and Democrats filed a last-minute lawsuit. Warnock is facing off against Trump-backed GOP contender Herschel Walker in a Dec. 6 runoff.

The judge’s ruling prevents Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from attempts to keep polls closed that day instead.

“Attorneys for Warnock argued that Raffensperger was misreading the state’s new election law and asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox to immediately enjoin the ban on voting on the only allowable Saturday before the election,” Bloomberg News reported.

Uzoma Nkwonta, an attorney representing the senator, argued, “Foreclosing voting opportunities has always been considered irreparable harm.”

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Bloomberg adds:

That Warnock and the Democratic Party would sue over just one day of casting ballots underscores how much the 2021 GOP election overhaul has derailed early voting in Georgia’s runoff elections. Democrats say curtailing early voting is an attempt to reduce participation by Black Georgians.

Both Warnock and Walker are black.

Later in 2021, the GOP-controlled state Legislature trimmed the runoff period to just four weeks, which led to complaints by Democrats whose constituents tend to vote early. This year, Georgians could only have as little as five days to vote and no more than seven, if Warnock’s lawsuit manages to survive any challenges.

“Georgia’s U.S. Senate race is heading to a runoff, with neither major candidate on track to win a majority of votes. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP nominee Herschel Walker will face off again on Tuesday, Dec. 6, with the Senate majority potentially on the line for a second straight election cycle in the historically conservative bastion,” Politico reported last week. “Warnock was slightly ahead, with 49 percent of the vote, but Georgia law requires a runoff if no candidate clears 50 percent.”

Currently, Democrats hold a 51-49 seat majority in the upper chamber after doing exceedingly well during a midterm voting cycle that typically does not favor the party in the White House. If Walker were to pull of a victory, the chamber would again be 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as tiebreaker.

And not surprisingly, the race has been rocked by scandal.

For instance, the church where Warnock preaches was recently accused of targeting poor residents of an apartment building that it owns in a new scandal that could worsen his chance of winning reelection next month.

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According to a report by the Washington Free Beacon, Warnock’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the senator serves as a senior pastor, “drawing a salary as well as a generous $7,417 monthly housing allowance—has moved to evict disadvantaged residents from an apartment building it owns, one of whom it tried to push out on account of merely $28.55 in past-due rent.”

This, after Warnock noted on Twitter as he campaigned for his office in 2020: “Unemployment benefits have expired, rent is due today, and many Georgia families are at risk of eviction in the middle of a pandemic,” adding that by failing to act, his political opponents were “clearly only concerned with serving their own interests.”

The Washington Examiner adds:

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The church is the 99 percent owner of the Columbia Tower at MLK Village in downtown Atlanta, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, which describe the building as a home for the “chronically homeless” and those with “mental disabilities.”

A dozen eviction lawsuits were filed against Columbia Tower residents over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the first one in February 2020 and, most recently, in September 2022. The total sum of past-due rent cited in the lawsuits is just $4,900, a figure that could have been covered by one of Warnock’s monthly housing stipends from the church.

The lawsuits were actually filed by Ebenezer Baptist Church’s 1-percent business partner owner, Columbia Residential, which manages the day-to-day operations of the apartment complex. But revelations about the evictions come as Warnock continues to portray himself as an ally of Georgians struggling to make their rent as they continue struggling to recover from the pandemic’s economic ravages.

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