Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Despite unprecedented challenges, Georgia's long election proved resilient

Georgia "I voted" stickers
Megan Varner/Getty Images

Even during the most expensive, contentious and turbulent election cycle in American history, democracy still prevailed — even in long-controversial Georgia, where the spending, campaigning and rhetoric continued into early January.

Voters came out in record numbers despite the raging Covid-19 pandemic and the election's integrity withstood repeated attacks from President Trump and his loyalists, including Wednesday's violent invasion of the Capitol while Congress certified the Electoral College count and Joe Biden's victory.

Georgia, with a history of voter suppression, was home to one of Trump's most flagrant attempts to undermine the election. Just days before the in-person voting, the president pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes — one more than Biden's winning margin in the state. Despite such efforts to subvert the results, election security experts say voters should rest assured that elections in the Peach State, like the rest of the country, were conducted with integrity and fairness.


While chaos broke out in Washington, Democrats secured two more wins in Georgia this week as the season's final election contests concluded. Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated their respective GOP incumbents, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, in the state's twin runoffs, creating an even split in the Senate — where Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will provide any tie-breaking votes.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Ossoff, a 33-year-old documentary filmmaker, will be the youngest senator since Biden. Warnock, a pastor of Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, will be the state's first Black senator.

"Well, it turns out that telling the voters that the election is rigged is not a great way to turn out your voters," Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said Wednesday in response to Trump falsely claiming Georgia's election was rigged.

David Levine, elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, said he's been "very impressed by how well conducted the elections have been considering the challenges that election officials have faced," such as coronavirus-related public health concerns, civil unrest and threats of foreign interference.

Georgia's primary saw hours-long lines due to machine malfunctions and staffing shortages. But the state was able to bounce back for the general election and Senate runoffs by increasing pay for election workers to help with retention and adding more secure drop boxes for absentee ballots, among other changes.

"What we saw in June really highlighted areas for improvement, and by and large, Georgia election officials really learned from that and adjusted," said Gowri Ramachandran, an election security expert at the Brennan Center, a liberal public policy institute at New York University Law School.

One silver lining to this pandemic-era election was the increased use of mail voting across the country. These paper ballots automatically established a physical record that made the election results easier to verify. An estimated 95 percent of votes cast in the general election had a verifiable paper trail — an improvement from four years ago when 14 states had paperless systems.

Georgia recently switched to a paper-based system in which voters either fill out a paper ballot or vote on a machine that produces a paper trail. The state also provides emergency paper backups of poll books and ballots in the case of machine malfunction or failure.

That paper trail allowed election officials to conduct a risk-limiting audit of the general election, recounting the more than 5 million votes cast to affirm Biden's win in the state. As one of the 12 states to use risk-limiting audits for elections, Georgia was an early adopter of the process, which experts say is a more efficient and statistically accurate way of ensuring the winner is correct.

"The premise of a risk-limiting audit is that you are determining the number of ballots you have to check dynamically based on the margin of victory, which is a lot more efficient for taxpayers, for speed and also if your goal is to figure out the correct winner," said Quinn Raymond, co-founder of VoteShield, an organization that tracks changes in voter data and flags anomalies for election administrators.

Georgia also keeps its voter rolls up to date through its partnership with the Electronic Registration Information Center, a consortium of 30 states that share registration information to improve accuracy. VoteShield analyzed Georgia's voter and absentee ballot data during the 2020 election and didn't find any issues or suspicious activity.

And while elections in the Peach State went fairly smoothly, experts say there is always room for improvement. For example, officials should focus on retaining election workers, who are often underpaid and overworked, and lining up back-up workers in case of emergency to ensure polling sites are well-staffed.

Republican lawmakers in Georgia have recently proposed significant rollbacks to mail voting based on unsubstantiated claims of fraud. Election security experts say extending early in-person voting and maintaining, if not expanding, no-excuse absentee voting will be key for future elections because multiple voting options boost election security and voter convenience.

"Considering the circumstances, I think it really showed that the people who are in charge of making our elections work and administering them were up for the job," Ramachandran said. "Democracy fared very well."

Read More

Business professional watching stocks go down.
Getty Images, Bartolome Ozonas

The White House Is Booming, the Boardroom Is Panicking

The Confidence Collapse

Consumer confidence is plummeting—and that was before the latest Wall Street selloffs.

Keep ReadingShow less
Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship
Getty Images, Mykyta Ivanov

Drain—More Than Fight—Authoritarianism and Censorship

The current approaches to proactively counteracting authoritarianism and censorship fall into two main categories, which we call “fighting” and “Constitution-defending.” While Constitution-defending in particular has some value, this article advocates for a third major method: draining interest in authoritarianism and censorship.

“Draining” refers to sapping interest in these extreme possibilities of authoritarianism and censorship. In practical terms, it comes from reducing an overblown sense of threat of fellow Americans across the political spectrum. When there is less to fear about each other, there is less desire for authoritarianism or censorship.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hands outside of bars.
Getty Images, stevanovicigor

Double Standard: Investing in Animal Redemption While Ignoring Human Rehabilitation

America and countries abroad have mastered the art of taming wild animals—training the most vicious killers, honing killer instincts, and even domesticating animals born for the hunt. Wild animals in this country receive extensive resources to facilitate their reintegration into society.

Americans spent more than $150 billion on their pets in 2024, with an estimated spending projection of $200 million by 2030. Millions of dollars are poured into shelters, rehabilitation programs, and veterinary care, as shown by industry statistics on animal welfare spending. Television ads and commercials plead for their adoption. Stray animal hotlines operate 24/7, ensuring immediate rescue services. Pet parks, relief stations in airports, and pageant shows showcase animals as celebrities.

Keep ReadingShow less