A sweeping bill to change Georgia's election practices awaits Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's expected signature.
It offers some hope for those who say the system failed miserably in the nation's eighth most populous state last fall, when a hotly contested and high-turnout election was marred by allegations that voters were wrongly denied access to the polls, absentee ballots were rejected for questionable reasons and vote counts were shady and incomplete. Kemp was secretary of state, in charge of election administration, at the time. He narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams, who was bidding to become the nation's first African-American woman governor.
Georgians will get a new generation of voting machines, with touchscreens attached to printers that generate paper ballots. This permits voters to review their choices before their ballots are counted and preserves a written record for use in recounts and a new system of audits, which the state election board has been ordered to put in place in time for the 2020 election.
Once the law is enacted, voter registrations won't be canceled for inactivity for eight or nine years, two years longer than under existing law, and voters will be mailed a notification at least a month before such cancelations. (More than 1.4 million voter registrations were canceled in the state over the past eight years.)
The new law will also limit Georgia's "exact match" rule, which stalled more than 50,000 registrations last year because of mismatches between applications and other state records on such things as hyphenations of last names and use of maiden names. From now on, applicants will immediately become active voters when they sign up, with such discrepancies flagged for election judges to review when voters show photo IDs at polling places.
Also, the bill prevents polling place relocations or closures within two months of a primary or general election. County officials have closed 214 precincts across Georgia since 2012, according to an analysis conducted last year by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But at the same time the bill will reduce the number of voting machines in each precinct to one for every 250 voters; now, it's one per 200 voters.
The new statute says absentee ballots may not be rejected because of mismatches between voters' signatures on their ballots and their signatures on file. Instead, a system will be created to allow people with signature problems to provide identification. (The AJC found that nearly 7,000 absentee ballots, or 3 percent of the statewide total, were rejected in November.)
Finally, the legislation lowers the threshold for a losing candidate to request an automatic recount to half a percentage point; the standard is now a full percentage point.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."