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Abrams lost the Georgia governor's race by 55,000 votes in an election marred by allegations of voter suppression

She formed an organization to register and empower voters, wrote a book about voter suppression and co-produced an Amazon Prime documentary, "All In: the Fight for Democracy."

No Democratic presidential candidate had won in Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992, although Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came fairly close. But Biden got more than 2.4 million votes in Georgia, smashing Hillary Clinton's total by more than half a million.

"Stacey has tirelessly worked to get Joe Biden and the Democratic National Convention to pay attention to Georgia, spending years organizing and strategizing to make sure Georgians have their voices heard at the polls," said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, an effort launched by Abrams in 2013 to grow the electorate. "We wouldn't be in the position we are in today without her leadership."

Georgia had voted Republican in eight of the past nine presidential elections. But explosive growth and changing demographics are expanding Democrats' base and turning the state purple. Republicans may no longer be able to count on the Peach State.

Last year, Abrams and her former campaign manager wrote a 16-page document filled with data and trends on Democratic voters in the state. They described it as a blueprint for victory in 2020.

"With a diverse, growing population and rapidly changing electorate, Georgia is not a future opportunity for Democrats; it is a necessity right now," it said. "Georgia is every bit as competitive as perennial battleground states. With one of the youngest and the most African American electorate of any competitive state, Georgia has demographic advantages that don't exist in other states."

Abrams, the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, has devoted years to expanding the electorate and boosting turnout in the state, which had been reliably red for decades.

The disputed election outcome also inspired Abrams' organizations to push to register voters in underrepresented communities.

After her narrow loss to Brian Kemp in the 2018 race -- which would have made her the first female African American governor -- Abrams launched Fair Fight, which funded and trained voter protection teams in 20 battleground states. It targeted young and minority voters, and educated them on the election and their voting rights.

Abrams' strong 2018 campaign and grassroots efforts have made her a rising star in the Democratic party. In 2019 she became the first Black woman to deliver the official Democratic response to a State of the Union speech.

This year she was among the top candidates considered as potential running mates for Biden. Trump's campaign mocked her, saying she was on a "desperate audition" to become Biden's vice president, but Abrams was not coy about her ambitions.

it's not about attention for being the running mate, it is about making sure that my qualifications aren't in question, because they're not just speaking to me, they're speaking to young black women, young women of color, young people of color, who wonder if they too can be seen."

"I had two messages. One, voter suppression is real and we have to have a plan to fight back. Two, Georgia is real. You've got to have a plan to fight here," she told CNN this week. "We were very privileged to know that by the time Joe Biden won the nomination, he had Georgia on his mind."

Many African Americans in Georgia say they were motivated to vote in person by what happened when Republican Brian Kemp ran against Abrams for governor while serving as the state's chief elections officer.

Abrams argued he used his position to sway the election, while Kemp countered that she had "manufactured a 'crisis' to fire up her supporters and raise funds from left wing radicals."

"Let's be clear -- this is not a speech of concession, because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper," she said. "As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that. But ... the title of governor isn't nearly as important as our shared title -- voters. And that is why we fight on."

Seven years ago she founded The New Georgia Project, a voter registration group that has led a grassroots effort to reach and register potential new voters in churches, college campuses and neighborhoods.

Thanks in part to Abrams, Georgia may now be a perennial battleground too.

GOP leaders justify the voter suppression measures by arguing that they are needed to crack down on fraud and to restore the public's faith that US elections are fair. But multiple courts and Trump's own Justice Department found there was no widespread electoral fraud in 2020.

The Georgia bill is only one example of GOP efforts in multiple states -- including many crucial electoral battlegrounds -- to hold back a diverse demographic tide in cities that favor Democrats, which critics see as an attempt to cement minority rule in the United States.

Georgia Republicans also lost two US Senate seats that handed Democrats control of the 50-50 chamber on the basis of huge Black turnout in runoff elections in January.close dialogSign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Please enter above Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.You're on the list for CNN'sCNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. close dialog/* effects for .bx-campaign-1245919 *//* custom css .bx-campaign-1245919 *//* custom css from creative 47804 */@-ms-keyframes bx-anim-1245919-spin { from {

"This should be marked as Exhibit A in making the case that discriminatory voter suppression is alive and well, and makes clear why we need federal voting rights legislation to stop these laws in their tracks," Hewitt said. "We stand ready to take action and protect the fundamental right to vote through the courts."

as a remnant of the Jim Crow era that institutionalized racism and hinted that he could ultimately back abolishing the Senate filibuster to get the Democrats' House-passed bill through the chamber. But Biden declined to reveal his strategy for getting the voting rights bill into law.

Georgia's action threw a political grenade into the debate over a Washington campaign by many Democrats to abolish Senate supermajority rules that Republicans could use to block their sweeping election bill, known as the For the People Act.

In a statement to CNN, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who defied Trump's pleas in a telephone call to find votes to overturn Biden's victory, said he would still stand up for voter freedoms but did not criticize the law."In implementing this law, I will ensure that no eligible Georgia voter is hindered in exercising their right to vote, and I will continue to further secure our elections so that every Georgian can have confidence in the results of our elections," Raffensperger said

"As the FBI continue to round up seditionists who spilled blood to defend a lie about our elections, Republican state leaders willfully undermine democracy by giving themselves authority to overturn results they do not like," Abrams said in a statement. "Now, more than ever, Americans must demand federal action to protect voting rights as we continue to fight against these blatantly unconstitutional efforts that are nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0."

Black voters hampered by the restrictions of voting in urban areas have often found themselves lining up for hours to vote in inclement weather. The clear targeting of African American voters in Georgia and elsewhere recalls some of the ugliest racial episodes of America's past, and is fueling claims of open Republican racism.

Former President Donald Trump's campaign of lies about a stolen election just delivered a huge victory with a new Georgia law that could suppress the votes of many of the citizens who helped eject him from the White House.

Republican state lawmakers rushed through a broad law Thursday making it harder to vote that disproportionately targets Democratic and Black voters

The move confirms the Peach State as the epicenter of the fight for American democracy

The Georgia law raises the question of whether election safeguards that prevented Trump's energetic efforts to rig the 2020 White House race after the fact in the state will stand firm in future elections amid false claims of electoral fraud by a president.

"What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It's sick. It's sick," President Joe Biden

Republicans in multiple states pursue new laws to limit voting.

Georgia Republicans also lost two US Senate seats that handed Democrats control of the 50-50 chamber on the basis of huge Black turnout in runoff elections in January.close dialogSign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Sign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign me upNo thanksBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.By subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN What Matters NewsletterEvery day we summarize What Matters and deliver it straight to your inbox.//assets.bounceexchang

After leaving office, Trump demanded that Republican state legislatures pass laws to ban mail-in voting and to prevent courts from weighing in on electoral disputes.

the former President has made the acceptance of his false conspiracy theories about voter fraud in 2020 a litmus test for Republican candidates

Iowa has already passed a measure to limit absentee balloting and voting hours. Texas is taking steps to cut voting hours and absentee balloting in big Democratic cities like Houston. New voting laws are being pushed by Republicans in another swing state Trump lost, Arizona.

GOP leaders justify the voter suppression measures by arguing that they are needed to crack down on fraud and to restore the public's faith that US elections are fair. But multiple courts and Trump's own Justice Department found there was no widespread electoral fraud in 2020.

voter mistrust was largely fueled by Trump's blatantly false claims

Georgia's action threw a political grenade into the debate over a Washington campaign by many Democrats to abolish Senate supermajority rules that Republicans could use to block their sweeping election bill, known as the For the People Act.

The drama in the Georgia Legislature unfolded as Biden condemned restrictive state legislation as a remnant of the Jim Crow era that institutionalized racism and hinted that he could ultimately back abolishing the Senate filibuster to get the Democrats' House-passed bill through the chamber.

The law allows any Georgian to make unlimited challenges to voter registrations, and, incredibly, makes it a misdemeanor crime for anyone to offer food and water to voters stuck in long lines to cast ballots.

The clear targeting of African American voters in Georgia and elsewhere recalls some of the ugliest racial episodes of America's past, and is fueling claims of open Republican racism.

The Georgia law was quickly signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who incurred the wrath of Trump last year for refusing to play along with his attempt to override Biden's victory by 12,000 votes in the state, which was confirmed by several audits.

"In implementing this law, I will ensure that no eligible Georgia voter is hindered in exercising their right to vote, and I will continue to further secure our elections so that every Georgian can have confidence in the results of our elections," Raffensperger said.

Kemp is up for reelection in 2022 and could face Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former state lawmaker and prominent voting rights advocate

"As the FBI continue to round up seditionists who spilled blood to defend a lie about our elections, Republican state leaders willfully undermine democracy by giving themselves authority to overturn results they do not like," Abrams said in a statement. "Now, more than ever, Americans must demand federal action to protect voting rights as we continue to fight against these blatantly unconstitutional efforts that are nothing less than Jim Crow 2.0."

the measure directly targeted voters of color who took part in record numbers in the 2020 election.

The For the People Act awaiting action in the Senate would create automatic voter registration nationwide and restore portions of the Voting Rights Act that were gutted by the Supreme Court. It would also strengthen mail-in voting and permit early voting across the country, while taking steps to cut wait times at the polls.

Warnock is the first Georgia Democrat elected to the Senate in 20 years, and his election is the culmination of years of voter registration drives conducted by former state House Democratic leader Stacey Abrams and other activists.

"I am an iteration and an example of the American dream," the senator-elect told CNN's John Berman Wednesday morning on "New Day." He added, "When I think about the arc of our history, what Georgia did last night is its own message in the midst of a moment in which so many people are trying to divide our country, at a time we can least afford to be divided."

fter no Georgia Senate candidate received 50% of the vote in November, the races turned to two runoffs.

rump's ongoing onslaught against the Republican officials in charge of the elections pressured the two GOP senators to make a choice: Join the President in seeking to overturn the democratic outcome or risk losing Trump supporters, some of whom have become disenchanted with the electoral process. Trump recently appeared to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on a private call, urging him to "find" enough votes to reverse the results. Raffensperger refused.

Republicans hoped their message that Georgia should be a check on Washington would prove successful, noting that if Warnock and Ossoff win, Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer will be in charge.

The American people deserve a platform in Congress, permitted under the Constitution, to have election issues presented so that they can be addressed," said Loeffler

Warnock told CNN Wednesday that his opponent "has consistently put what she perceives to be her own short-term political interests over the concerns of ordinary people."

Georgia is a rapidly diversifying state, the Republican candidates came into the Senate runoff elections with an advantage.

In November, Perdue received over 88,000 more votes than Ossoff, while Loeffler and the other Republican candidates received more votes than Warnock and the other Democratic candidates in the special election (Warnock received most of the vote -- 33% -- overall).

We've seen tremendous enthusiasm in the early voting numbers, both in person and by mail, and we know that while Democrats will have a lead when polls open ... Republicans are expected to have a strong Election Day," said Seth Bringman

Loeffler and Perdue decided to join the President in objecting to Congress' certification of the Electoral College's results in a final, deluded display of devotion to Trump supporters.

"Senator Perdue and Senator Loeffler are being whipsawed by the President on one side and by the Democratic money on the other side," he said.

Perdue's closing message in a recent video was littered with attacks, saying that if Republicans lose, undocumented immigrants will vote, Americans' private health insurance will be "taken away," and Democrats will pack the Supreme Court and defund the police.

The Democratic candidates counter that they would "demilitarize" rather than defund the police,

They argued they would do a better job ending the health care crisis over the coronavirus, which has infected more than 20.8 million Americans and killed at least 354,000, in order to reopen the economy.

Warnock told CNN Wednesday that he believes tackling the pandemic by effectively distributing the vaccine and passing $2,000 stimulus checks should be the new Senate's top priority.

After no candidate received 50% of the vote, the runoffs turned even more vicious, as Loeffler portrayed Warnock an anti-police Marxist who would destroy America in the Senate.

"Kelly Loeffler spends tens of millions of dollars to scare you," said Warnock in an ad. "She's trying to make you afraid of me because she's afraid of you. Afraid that you understand how she's used her position in the Senate to enrich herself and others like her. Afraid that you'll realize that we can do better."

Perdue, a 71-year-old former Fortune 500 CEO, has dismissed Ossoff, a 33-year-old media executive, saying the Democrat does not know how to create a job

The Georgia US Senate races have attracted enormous attention due to the stakes for the first years of the Biden administration and the state's shift from red to purple. Dr. Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political science professor, told CNN that the Senate elections could be the first in which urban Georgia casts more votes than rural Georgia.

epublicans are worried that Trump's unwillingness to concede jeopardizes the party's hold on the Senate,

Political groups spent about $520 million to advertise in the two runoff races, according to Kantar Media/CMAG, averaging more than $8 million per day. Republicans outspent Democrats by tens of millions of dollars.

Biden said electing Ossoff and Warnock would end the gridlock in Washington and allow Congress to provide $2,000 stimulus checks to Americans. Trump urged the state to elect Perdue and Loeffler, and claimed that Biden would not take the White House.

Willis has said her investigation will expand past Trump's call with Raffensperger to include any efforts to influence the election in Georgia. She is also investigating a phone call between Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt departure of Byung "BJay" Pak, the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and the false allegations of election fraud Rudy Giuliani made before Georgia legislators.

The former President's legal troubles began to mount in the wake of a stunning January 2 phone call. In the 62-minute call, Trump lambasted his fellow Republican for refusing to falsely say that Trump won the election in Georgia and repeatedly touted baseless claims of election fraud. "The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you've recalculated," Trump said in one part of the call.

"All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state," Trump said. A person familiar with the investigation said Willis will not hesitate to dig into the details surrounding the call, even if Trump's team tries to claim various types of privilege to shield the former President from investigative inquiries.

"The repeated calls sort of start to tell the story that this was not, again, an official trying to talk to another official about problems that he or she might see in an election," Michael J. Moore, the former US attorney for the Middle District of Georgia between 2010 and 2015 under President Barack Obama, told CNN. "They paint a picture about intent and that's an important element for every prosecutor."

"He might say, his lawyers might say, 'No, no, no. He's calling to complain. He's Kvetching. He's saying I got cheated,' " Williams said. Trump's defense could be, "I'm not calling him to ask him to cheat for me, I'm calling him to ask him to undo the cheating," Williams added. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment for this story. In a previous statement to CNN on February 9, Trump's senior adviser Jason Miller said there was nothing "improper or untoward" about the call between Trump and Raffensperger.

In the final days of the Trump administration, after numerous public attacks from Trump following the election, some members of the Secretary of State's office retained attorneys out of fear the then-President could leverage resources for political retaliation, a source with the office told CNN. And while Republican officials in Georgia have been eager to move beyond the drama of the election, they are expected to be drawn back into the investigation as Willis runs down the details surrounding the call with Raffensperger, as well as outreach from Trump and his GOP allies to other state officials

Trump also had contact with Georgia's Attorney General Chris Carr and Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican, was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he called Raffensperger on November 13 and inquired whether Raffensperger could discard all mail-in ballots from counties that had shown higher rates of unmatched signatures, the Republican secretary of state told the Washington Post at the time. Graham has denied the assertions from Raffensperger, who has stood firm on his account. Graham's spokesman Kevin Bishop has said that accusations that the senator's call was inappropriate were "ridiculous."

Willis has also expressed interest in exploring testimony from Giuliani before Georgia state senators, in which Giuliani promoted unfounded theories about why Trump won Georgia and a handful of other states that Trump had, in reality, lost. Giuliani told a room of mostly Republican lawmakers that Georgia's voting machines could not be trusted, tens of thousands of absentee ballots were illegally cast and not properly counted, and that the legislature should appoint its own electors who supported Trump. "It's your responsibility if a false and fraudulent count is submitted to the United States government, and it is clear that the count you have right now is false," Giuliani said during the hearing.

Giuliani said "the law gives you a lot of leeway to view the case in the light most favorable to your client."

"There are lots of different pieces and they're different acts and different people involved," Cunningham said. "Lawsuits all over the place, hoping to find a judge who would issue a temporary restraining order, asking a general assembly to intervene, of course raising all kinds of allegations of fraud, pressure threatening the Governor, threatening the Secretary of State."

While Willis wasted no time in launching her investigation into the former President, she said during the AP interview that she has no set timeline for completing her inquiry. "I'm in no rush," she said. "I think people think that I feel this immense pressure. I don't."

An average of recent Georgia polls show both races within the margin of error and way too close to call, CNN's Harry Enten writes.share with Facebookshare with Twittershare with emailshare linkREAD MOREBiden says electing Georgia's Ossoff and Warnock would lead to $2,000 stimulus checksBy Kate Sullivan, CNNDemocrats may make history in Georgia's Senate runoffsAnalysis by Harry Enten, CNNHow Georgia got to the center of the US political universeBy Zachary B. Wolf, CNNMore people are moving to Georgia than ever before. Many are bringing their Democratic politics with themBy Christina Maxouris, CNN

The Senate hopefuls are embracing the change. “Think about how far we’ve come, Macon, that your standard bearers in these races are the young Jewish journalist, son of an immigrant, and a Black pastor who holds Dr. King’s pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church,” Mr. Ossoff said during a recent drive-in rally in the central Georgia city.

The two candidates are also gladly accepting help from their national party, something Georgia Democrats once shied away from.

“It’s a total 180 in terms of strategy,” said Mr. Thurmond, the DeKalb County executive, recalling the hotly-contested 1980 Senate race in which political junkies stayed up late watching the metro Atlanta returns — except then it was to see if Mack Mattingly, a Republican, could claim enough votes in the region to overcome Mr. Talmadge’s rural strength.

“There are very few swing voters,” said Ms. Abrams, now a voting rights activist. She said that this was particularly the case in a general election runoff when turnout typically falls and “you are trying to convince the core of your base to come back a second time in a pretty short period.”

Atlanta itself has long been a mecca for African-Americans but the entire metropolitan region is now diverse, and counties that were once heavily white and solidly Republican are now multiracial bulwarks of Democratic strength.

In November, Mr. Biden won almost 60 percent of the vote in the county, and the jurisdiction elected a Black sheriff for the first time.

Although today’s Georgia candidates are a better fit for the current Democratic Party, and may more easily energize the young and nonwhite voters who make up its base, they have struggled in much of the state’s rural areas. Mr. Biden was able to defy this trend in his November victory, outperforming Ms. Abrams’s 2018 showing and Mr. Ossoff’s November performance in some of the state’s most conservative redoubts.

A reliably red state for almost two decades, Georgia no longer resembles its Deep South neighbors. President Trump and Joe Biden head there Monday to help rally the bases.

Although Georgia still skews slightly to the right of America’s political center, it has become politically competitive for the same demographic reasons the country is closely divided: Democrats have become dominant in big cities and suburban areas but they suffer steep losses in the lightly-populated regions that once elected governors, senators and, in Georgia, a native-born president, Jimmy Carter.

Yet even bringing the president back to Georgia at all marked a risk for Republicans, after weeks in which he roiled G.O.P. politics in the state. He demonstrated his willingness to intervene once again this weekend: in an extraordinary phone call on Saturday, Mr. Trump pleaded with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find enough votes to reverse his loss in the state, The Washington Post reported.

If the Democrats have shifted away from putting forward candidates like the Mr. Miller and former Senator Sam Nunn, another centrist from small-town Georgia, Republicans have turned to elevating candidates much like their national leader: David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are wealthy business executives with little political experience.

“I think a lot of people were like me,” Ms. Smith said, “and after 2016 we thought: ‘I have to do more. I can’t just sit on my hands. I have to get involved.’ And that energy has just stuck around. I want to be involved now.”

"It was just an implication of, 'Look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.' "

Graham had cast doubt on Georgia's signature-matching law in a conversation on Friday, and had also floated the possibility that biased poll workers could have counted ballots with inconsistent signatures.

There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and fraudulently altering a federal election vote tally is a federal crime.

Graham denied Raffensperger's claim on Monday, telling CNN that he had said he wanted to understand the process for verifying the signatures on mail-in ballots

Asked if he was trying to pressure the secretary of state to toss legal ballots, Graham said, "That's ridiculous."

"What I'm trying to find out was how do you verify signatures on mail-in ballots in these states that are the center of attention? So like when you mail in a ballot, you got to have some way to verify that the signature on the envelope actually matches the person who requested the ballot," Graham said

"So they expanded mail-in voting, and how you verify the signatures to me is the big issue

Raffensperger told Blitzer that Georgia's election systems already require signature matches when voters request mail ballots and when completed ballots are returned to election systems. He also said the online absentee portal has a photo ID.

"We feel confident the election officials did their job," he said.

On Friday, CNN projected that Biden will win Georgia and its 16 electoral votes. Unofficial results put Biden ahead of Trump by about 14,000 votes, or about 0.3 percentage point.

due to the tight margin, state officials decided to use the preplanned audit process to recount every ballot in the presidential race.

At least six small counties in Georgia have finished their presidential recounts without finding any discrepancies.

A seventh county, Floyd, reported that 2,600 uncounted ballots had been found during their recount -- the ballots hadn't been scanned when the county tallied its early vote. An investigation is underway but human error has been deemed responsible.

Experts say it would be nearly impossible for Trump to overcome his 14,000-vote deficit in a recount.

"We want to make sure this vote is very accurate. We understand the national importance of this, and we're in the process of doing it," he told Blitzer on Monday. "The counters will be done by the 18th and we will certify this by the 20th."

Raffensperger, among other things, defended the integrity of absentee ballots, signature verification, and the vote counting machines

Raffensperger responded that his team "secured and strengthened absentee ballots for the first time since 2005" by outlawing absentee ballot harvesting and also addressed the "disinformation about signature match," writing that "GBI trained elections officials match your signature twice before any vote is cast."

He also posted links to news articles debunking Trump's tweets, including one alleging the Dominion voting software used in Georgia for the presidential election "deleted" and "switched" millions of votes

After nearly three decades supporting Republican presidential candidates -- the last Democrat Georgia supported was Bill Clinton in 1992 -- its vote for Biden seemed like a surprise, but it came after a remarkable grassroots campaign to get new voters to the polls and years of demographic shifts that have created a more diverse population.

Barack Obama turned two previously red southern states blue in 2008. But while Virginia has stayed in the Democratic column in each successive presidential election and now seems as reliably blue as any other US state, North Carolina veered back to Republicans, although it has remained at the top of Democrats' target list.

The outcome of the twin Senate runoffs in Georgia on January 5 will hold some indication and test the turnout operation Stacey Abrams undertook with her organization The New Georgia Project after she narrowly lost the 2018 governor's race there.

"We have seen dramatic turnout among communities that typically are not at the top of mind for candidates. We have seen them be engaged, be encouraged and we have seen them turn out," Abrams told CNN on Election Day in November.

What we have seen in the last decade is that in statewide elections in Georgia is that Democrats have been increasing their margins. They've been garnering more votes. They've been narrowing the gap between them and the Republican Party. So if they were going to continue on that trajectory, it was only a matter of time before Democrats were going to pass Republicans in terms of the vote. Winning the presidential election is only one data point, so I can't, I can't create a trend just yet with respect to that. What I suspect we're entering into is an era of increased competition where I'm expecting that we're going to continue to see very narrow margins between Democratic and Republican candidates in statewide elections, where Democrats win some elections and Republicans some elections.

Southern whites were a firm part of the New Deal coalition and that starts to change after the Civil Rights Movement. It didn't happen overnight. It took a long period of time. It culminated in the 2000s, at the beginning of the decade, with Sonny Perdue's gubernatorial victory and a change in party of the control in the state House of Representatives. And then it culminated by the 2010s at the end of the decade, when all of the statewide offices were won by Republican candidates.

We also have to credit the effort of both the Democratic Party and outside groups in reaching out to likely Democratic voters, getting them registered to vote and then getting them educated and mobilized so that they actually turn out to vote.

What we've seen happen in the last 20 years in the state is, one: the size of the African American vote makes up 30% of registered voters in the state. Given the fact that they are 90% Democratic in their voting behaviors, that means they make up the majority of Democratic voters in the state.But you can't win with 90% of 30% of the population, so you need a nontrivial number of White voters. And unlike neighboring states, Georgia is in a position where Democrats can get 30% of White voters.Georgia, unlike South Carolina or Alabama or Mississippi, has a very fast-growing Asian American and Hispanic population.While the Black electorate grew in the 2000s, the growth has been the most Asian American and Hispanic voters in the 2010s. They were 3% of all of registered voters in 2012, they were 6% of registered voters in this election cycle, and they also break Democratic. And if you get everybody to turn out to vote, you can put a winning electoral coalition together of African American, Asian American, Hispanic and liberal White voters.

Atlanta being a financial hub, a tech hub, a hub for the arts.

Atlanta is attracting well educated professional types of voters who are more Democratic in their orientation

In particular, Georgia is more Democratic now because it's got growing populations of color who are predisposed to be Democratic in orientation.This is not to say that 20 or 40 or 50 years from now that these populations are still going to be Democratic in orientation. A lot can change.

Indeed, this election isn't just about Georgia and the Senate majority. It's about Trump's legacy. If Republicans lose in Georgia, Trump will be to blame

It's hard not to assign Perdue and Loeffler's troubles at least partially to Trump. He was the weak link for Republicans running statewide in Georgia this past year. He lost by 0.2 points and his margin was more than a point worse than the Republican candidates in both Senate races.

Meanwhile, turnout in the more White rural areas of the state has been lagging

As it turns out, the turnout level for these runoffs (over 3 million voters) has already exceeded that of any statewide Georgia runoff by about a million voters. Keep in mind, this has occurred with voting on the day of the election still to occur.

But so far, the turnout swing seems to be favoring Democrats. Black voters have consistently been making up 3 to 4 points more of voters through the early voting period than they did at the equivalent points in the general election.

He has attacked Georgia's November election as fraudulent without any proof and gone after the Republican governor and secretary of state. He elevated the issue of $2,000 stimulus checks and has allowed Ossoff and Warnock to point out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it hard for such a stimulus to pass through the Senate. (The stimulus is popular.)

If Republicans hold onto even one of their Senate seats in Georgia, Trump perhaps isn't as toxic to Republicans as some might assume. No doubt, you'd hear Trump trumpet a Republican win in Georgia for months to come.

Georgia, along with the other Sun Belt states, is likely to be among the fastest battlegrounds to report its results on election night.

Obama told the crowd he hadn't originally planned to come to the state, but he said he was told Georgia "could be the place where we put this country back on track."

He hammered Trump for suggesting Sunday night that he might fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious diseases expert, after the election.

Obama's visit followed Biden's running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, visiting in Georgia on Sunday.

"All that we are looking to now in terms of Georgia and the prospect of what we might accomplish in this state, in large part, we have to say thank you Stacey Abrams for the work you have done," Harris said.

saying voters must "honor their ancestors" as she lambasted Trump's long history of racist comments and actions.

Trump, meanwhile, visited Rome, Georgia, on Sunday night, delivering his stump speech and making clear he expects to win the state for a second time Tuesday.

"I shouldn't even be here. They say I have Georgia made," Trump said.

Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said the state's evolution from 2016 -- with a network of female activists engaging starting in the 2017 House special election, through Abrams' party-building in 2018, and protests over racial injustice in 2020 -- has built the moment party loyalists there have been waiting for.

In addition to Georgia's 16 electoral votes at stake in the presidential race, Democrats are closely watching two Senate races in Georgia: Ossoff's challenge to Republican Sen. David Perdue, and a special election in which Democratic Rev. Raphael Warnock faces several opponents, including incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

However, if both Democratic candidates win, the parties will be evenly split in the upper chamber, allowing Vice President-elect Kamala HarrisKamala HarrisBiden says GOP senators have called to congratulate him Biden says family will avoid business conflicts Biden says China must play by 'international norms' MORE to cast a tie-breaking vote on legislation.

Democrat the Rev. Raphael Warnock holds a lead over GOP Sen. Kelly LoefflerKelly LoefflerTop Senate GOP super PAC raises million ahead of Georgia runoffs Republican senators introduce bill to protect government workers from being targeted at home Republicans scramble to counter calls to boycott Georgia runoffs MORE (Ga.) in a poll of one of two Georgia runoff races that will determine the balance of the Senate.

Warnock leads Loeffler 52 percent to 45 percent

Democrat John Ossoff is narrowly leading Sen. David PerdueDavid PerdueRepublican senators introduce bill to protect government workers from being targeted at home Republicans scramble to counter calls to boycott Georgia runoffs Georgia Republicans push for photo ID for future absentee voting MORE (R-Ga.) 50 percent to the Republican’s 48 percent in the state’s other runoff election that will take place in January.

White voters in the Peach State gave Perdue a 43-point lead and Loeffler a 37-point lead, according to the poll.

Among Black voters, Ossoff led in his runoff race with an 87-point advantage and Warnock with an 83-point advantage.  

Republican grassroots activists mounted a weekend campaign to ensure the bill's passage

The efforts to restrict voting come after the traditionally red state backed Democrat Joe Biden for the presidency last year and sent two Democrats to the US Senate, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.

The ACLU of Georgia executive director Andrea Young said her group would use "every tool" available to block the voting restrictions, including taking the fight to the state's corporate interests.

Lauren Groh-Wargo -- the CEO of Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group founded by former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams -- promised to "fight in Georgia, in the courts and in Congress to make sure that Georgians' voting rights are not infringed."

The bill aims to dismantle a 2005 Republican-backed law allowing no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia is one of 34 states that do not currently require an excuse to vote by mail, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The state's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has not declared whether he would sign the bill in its current form into law

More broadly, Kemp wants to "ensure Georgia's elections are secure, accessible, and fair -- and that it must be easy to vote and hard to cheat in Georgia," Blount added, echoing Kemp's standard line about voting.Leading up to Monday's vote, Georgia Republicans faced pressure from grassroots GOP activists to pass voting restrictions. Former President Donald Trump has made repeated and baseless claims that election fraud contributed to his defeat in Georgia and elsewhere. And Trump has lashed out against Kemp, who is up for reelection in 2022, and other Republicans in the state who refused to back his fraud claims.

there's no evidence of widespread fraud that would have overturned the election's outcome in Georgia or anywhere else, federal and state officials have said.

"The Republican base is united in this, and I dare Brian Kemp to veto a strong election security bill that comes to his desk," she said. "He's in enough trouble as it is. I know a lot of Republicans that have pledged not to support him under any circumstance."

"The Lt. Governor has been crystal clear that he does not support the roll-back of absentee voting, and instead believes that modernizing and updating the system is more appropriate," McFall said in a statement to CNN.

Under the measure approved Monday, to qualify for an absentee ballot, voters must be 65 years old or older, absent from their precinct, observing a religious holiday, required to provide constant care for someone with a physical disability, or required to work "for the protection of the health, life, or safety of the public during the entire time the polls are open," or be an overseas or military voter.

"It's an example of how a 'race neutral policy' can end up having racially disparate impacts," said Kevin Morris, a Brennan Center researcher. "You don't have to use the word 'race' to carve up the electorate in racially disparate ways."

NHTSA said it has an “active investigation” of Autopilot. “NHTSA generally does not comment on matters related to open investigations,” NHTSA spokeswoman Veronica Morales said in a statement. In 2021, the agency adopted a rule requiring carmakers such as Tesla to report crashes involving their driver-assistance systems.Beyond the data collection, though, there are few clear legal limitations on how this type of advanced driver-assistance technology should operate and what capabilities it should have.

“Tesla has decided to take these much greater risks with the technology because they have this sense that it’s like, ‘Well, you can figure it out. You can determine for yourself what’s safe’ — without recognizing that other road users don’t have that same choice,” former NHTSA administrator Steven Cliff said in an interview.“If you’re a pedestrian, [if] you’re another vehicle on the road,” he added, “do you know that you’re unwittingly an object of an experiment that’s happening?”

Banner researched Tesla for years before buying a Model 3 in 2018, his wife, Kim, told federal investigators. Around the time of his purchase, Tesla’s website featured a video showing a Tesla navigating the curvy roads and intersections of California while a driver sits in the front seat, hands hovering beneath the wheel.The video, recorded in 2016, is still on the site today.“The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons,” the video says. “He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.”

Musk made a similar assertion about a more sophisticated form of Autopilot called Full Self-Driving on an earnings call in July. “Now, I know I’m the boy who cried FSD,” he said. “But man, I think we’ll be better than human by the end of this year.”

While the video concerned Full Self-Driving, which operates on surface streets, the plaintiffs in the Banner case argue Tesla’s “marketing does not always distinguish between these systems.”

Not only is the marketing misleading, plaintiffs in several cases argue, the company gives drivers a long leash when deciding when and how to use the technology. Though Autopilot is supposed to be enabled in limited situations, it sometimes works on roads it’s not designed for. It also allows drivers to go short periods without touching the wheel and to set cruising speeds well above posted speed limits.

Identifying semi-trucks is a particular deficiency that engineers have struggled to solve since Banner’s death, according to a former Autopilot employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Tesla complicated the matter in 2021 when it eliminated radar sensors from its cars, The Post previously reported, making vehicles such as semi-trucks appear two-dimensional and harder to parse.

“If a system turns on, then at least some users will conclude it must be intended to work there,” Koopman said. “Because they think if it wasn’t intended to work there, it wouldn’t turn on.”Andrew Maynard, a professor of advanced technology transitions at Arizona State University, said customers probably just trust the technology.“Most people just don’t have the time or ability to fully understand the intricacies of it, so at the end they trust the company to protect them,” he said.

“This is something that European politicians and consumers didn’t want to admit for quite a long time. It sounds terrible, but that’s the reality. In wartime the economy is mobilized. The decisions are made by the governments, not by the free market. This is the case for Europe this winter,” she said, adding that we may see forced rationing, price controls, the suspension of energy markets and shutdowns of whole industrial sectors. “We are not actually talking about extremely high prices, but we are talking about physical absence of energy resources in certain parts of Europe.”

It’s increasingly clear that Vladimir Putin is using gas as a weapon and trying to supply just enough gas to Europe to keep Europe in a perpetual state of panic about its ability to weather the coming winter.

Europe has been finding all the supplies that it can, but governments are realizing that’s not going to be sufficient. There are going to have to be efforts taken to curb demand as well and to prepare for the possibility of really severe energy rationing this winter.

If things become really severe this winter, I fear that you could see European countries start to look out for themselves rather than one another.

I think we could start to see governments saying, “Well, we’re going to restrict exports. We’re going to keep our energy at home.” Everyone starts to just look out for themselves, which I think would be exactly what Putin would hope for.

it would be wise to assume that Russia will use every opportunity it can to turn the screws on Europe.

I think you would see Russia continue to restrict gas exports and maybe cut them off completely to Europe — and a very cold winter. I think a combination of those two things would mean sky-high energy prices.

governments will have to ration energy supplies and decide what’s important.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine and maybe until very recently, I’ve had the sense that the European public and the public beyond Europe, as well as policymakers, have been a little bit sleepwalking into a looming crisis.

here was some unrealistic optimism about how quickly Europe could do without Russian gas. And we took too long to confront seriously just how bad the numbers would look if the worst came to pass.

I think there was continued skepticism that Putin would really cut the gas supply. “It might be declining. It might be a little bit lower,” people thought. “But he’s not really going to shut off the supply.” And I think now everyone’s recognizing that’s a real possibility.

Putin has the ability to do a lot of damage to the global economy — and himself, to be sure — if he cuts oil exports as well.

There’s no extra oil supply in the world at all, as OPEC Plus reminded everyone by saying: No, we’re not going to be increasing production much, and we can’t even if we wanted to.

For all the talk about high gasoline prices and the rhetoric of Putin’s energy price hike, Russia’s oil exports have not fallen very much. If that were to happen — either because the U.S. and Europe forced oil to come off the market to put economic pressure on Putin or because he takes the oil off the market to hurt all of us — oil prices go up enormously.

it depends how much he takes off the market. We don’t know exactly. If Russia were to cut its oil exports completely, the prices would just skyrocket — to hundreds of dollars a barrel, I think.

That’s because there’s just no extra supply out there today at all. There’s a very little extra supply that the Saudis and the Emiratis can put on the market. And that’s about it. We’ve used the strategic petroleum reserve, and that’s coming to an end in the next several months.

We’re heading into a winter where markets might simply not be able to work anymore as the instrument by which you determine supply and demand.

if prices just soar to uncontrollable levels, markets are not going to work anymore. You’re going to need governments to step in and decide who gets the scarce energy supplies — how much goes to heating homes, how much goes to industry. There’s going to be a pecking order of different industries, where some industries are deemed more important to the economy than others.

a lot of governments in Europe are putting in place those kinds of emergency plans right now.

if the worst comes to pass, governments will, by necessity, step in to say: Homes get the natural gas, and parts of industry get dumped. Probably they would set price caps on energy or massively subsidize it. So it’s going to be very painful.

Worryingly for the European economy, this may mean that factories that can’t switch fuels will go dormant.

Today, before winter comes, gas prices in Europe are around $60 per million British thermal units. That compares to around $7 to $8 here in the United States

if the worst comes to pass, the market, as a mechanism, simply won’t work. The market will break. The prices will go too high. There’s just not enough energy for the market to balance at a certain price.

don’t forget, the amount of liquid natural gas that Europe is importing today — Asia is competing for those shipments. What happens if the Asia winter is very bad? What happens if China and others are willing to pay very high prices for it?

I think we’re in a multiyear potential energy crisis.

one thing that hasn’t gotten enough attention and that I worry most about is the impact this is having on emerging markets and the developing economies, because it is an interconnected market. When Europe is competing to buy L.N.G. at very high prices, not to mention Asia, that means if you’re in Pakistan or Bangladesh or lower-income countries, you’re really struggling to afford it. You’re just priced out of the market for natural gas — and coal. Coal is incredibly expensive now,

I think that that is a real potential humanitarian crisis, as a ripple effect of what’s happening in Europe right now.

right now, the price of gas in Europe is about four times what it was last year. Russia has cut flows to Europe by two-thirds but is earning the same revenue as it did last year. So Putin is not being hurt by the loss of gas exports to Europe. Europe’s being hurt by that.

this situation could last for several years.

Could the energy crisis bring about a change of heart, in which European countries withdraw some of their support or even begin to pressure Ukraine to negotiate a settlement? Is it possible that could even happen in advance of this winter?

you would imagine that, over time, when you don’t see Ukraine on the front page each and every day, eventually people’s attention wanes a bit and at a certain point the economic pain of high energy prices or other economic harms from the conflict reach a point where support may start to fracture a bit.

Whether that reaches a point where you start to see the West put pressure on Ukraine to capitulate, I think we’re pretty far away from that now, because everyone recognizes how outrageous and unacceptable Putin’s conduct is.

The bill also creates ID requirements to request an absentee ballot, requiring anyone who does not have a state identification or state driver's license to submit a copy of an approved form of ID when requesting an absentee ballot as well as when submitting their absentee ballot.

Republican-controlled state legislatures are relying on election falsehoods to mount aggressive changes to voting rules. As of February 19, lawmakers in more than 40 states had introduced more than 250 bills that included voting restrictions, according to a tally by the liberal-leaning Brennan Center For Justice at New York University, which is tracking the bills.

Georgia GOP Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, the primary sponsor of the bill, said in introducing the legislation in February that limiting absentee voting was necessary in order to reduce the costs of processing ballots, relieve stress on local election workers and increase the certainty that absentee ballots are counted.

Senate President Butch Miller, also a Republican, told CNN that the legislation aims to increase confidence in the Peach State's election system following the 2020 elections.

The bill comes as Georgia has become ground zero for election law changes in the wake of the 2020 election.

The bill would also establish and maintain a voter hotline at the State Attorney's office for complaints and allegations of voter intimidation and illegal election activities, require Georgia to participate in a multi-state voter registration system in order to cross-check the eligibility of voters, limit the use of mobile voting locations, require a court order for extending polling hours, and would give the legislature authority to temporaril

Georgia Democratic lawmakers have denounced the legislation as backlash to the record turnout of the 2020 election and January runoffs which saw the state turn blue with President Joe Biden becoming the first Democrat to win the presidential election in the Peach State in nearly three decades.

"They (Republicans) passed this law. They didn't use it. The Democrats did. The GOP lost. And because of that, now, they want to change the laws back," Democratic Caucus Chair, Sen. Gloria Butler told CNN

Lauren Groh-Wargo of Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group founded by former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, said in a pointed statement Monday, "This blatantly unconstitutional legislation will not go unchallenged."

"It's a double pronged fight that we're in right now: to push back against this disinformation which is extremely dangerous and on the voting front itself to make sure that these regressive bills are not codified into law," said Poy Winichakul, staff attorney for the SPLC Action Fund. Last week, the US House of Representatives passed HR 1, also know as the "For the People Act," a sweeping government, ethics and election bill aimed at countering state-level Republican efforts to restrict voting access. The legislation would bar states from restricting the ability to vote by mail and, among other provisions, call for states to use independent redistricting commissions to create congressional district boundaries.

On Sunday, Biden signed an executive order expanding voting access and directing the heads of all federal agencies to submit proposals for their respective agencies to promote voter registration and participation within 200 days,

Black mortality was 65 percent higher and Hispanic mortality 75 percent higher.

at least in Ohio and Florida, despite what seemed at the time to be almost unbridgeable divides over things like mask wearing and school closures, social distancing and lockdowns, the excess mortality gap between Republicans and Democrats in the pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic was relatively small, with Republican excess mortality only 22 percent higher than the death rate among Democrats.

The country clearly stumbled in 2020. And yet before vaccines were widely available, and when we tried to slow the spread of the disease through behavioral measures, the scale of the failure was relatively small compared with what followed in the years after.

In 2020, American death rates and excess mortality fell merely at the worse end of its peer countries — above Germany and barely France but below Britain, Italy and Spain, for instance

In the vaccine era of the pandemic, American performance has been much worse, with our death rates becoming much more conspicuous and dramatic outliers — enough to make the country by far the worst performing of its peers.

Overall — from the beginning of the pandemic until the arrival of Omicron — Republican excess mortality in Ohio and Florida was 76 percent higher than Democratic excess mortality.

only 62 percent of Republicans have completed their primary vaccinations, compared with 87 percent of Democrats.

income and education tell a similar story: Only 67 percent of Americans with household incomes below $40,000 have completed their primary vaccinations, compared with 85 percent with household incomes above $90,000

What does this all mean for the next pandemic fall and winter? Well, thankfully, the racial and ethnic gaps around vaccination have almost entirely closed, which is one major reason the mortality gap has, too: According to Kaiser, 74 percent of Black and Hispanic Americans have been vaccinated, compared with 77 percent of whites

The demographic gaps for boosters are slightly larger: 50 percent of white adults have been boosted, according to Kaiser, compared with 43 percent of Black adults and 40 percent of Hispanic adults. (Only 31 percent of Republicans have been boosted.)

while the news from Europe isn’t especially reassuring, it would probably take an Omicron-like curveball to deliver a new American peak like those we experienced each of the previous two winters, and there does not seem to be anything like that on the horizon.

But according to The Times’s global vaccination tracker, Americans are doing almost exactly as poorly with boosters as we did with the first round of vaccines, not worse. The country ranks 66th globally in the share of population that has completed a primary vaccination course. For a first booster, it ranks 71s

One set of answers is implied by the story of vaccination and mortality by race, and the way improvements on one measure changed the trajectory of the other: more first shots and more boosting. This is the central strategy offered by the Biden administration. But the vaccinated share of the country has barely grown in months, and the uptake of next generation bivalent boosters looks, in the early stages, quite abysmal.

yet Americans are still dying at an annualized rate above 100,000 — a rate that may well grow as we head deeper into the fall. What are we doing about that?

another possible set of responses suggests itself too, one that wouldn’t require a reversal of vaccination trends or a transformation of the pandemic culture war either: an approach to public health infrastructure, both literal and legal, that would reduce spread through background interventions without meaningfully burdening individual Americans at all.

in a perverse way the arrival of vaccines seemed to almost retire them from public discussion. They include better ventilation in public buildings, particularly schools

Testing could help, too, of course, though culturally it seems to have been dumped into a bucket with masks, as an individual tool and individual burden, rather than one with investments in ventilation improvements, as part of an invisible Covid-mitigating infrastructure

Over the last six months, an individual risk approach to Covid has predominated — both at the level of public health guidance and for most individuals navigating the new, quasi-endemic landscape

This argument is unhelpful, not just because it is needlessly toxic but also because the terms themselves are inadequate. One of the lessons of that early phase of the pandemic, and especially its racial disparities, is that mitigation is not strictly a matter of individual risk management. Spread matters, too, as do structural factors. We have tools to help both, without returning the country psychologically to the depths of Covid panic.

And although the partisan gap grew with the arrival of vaccines, it never grew as large as the racial gap had been in early 2020. In 2021, Republican excess mortality in those two states was at its highest, compared to Democratic levels: 153 percent. At the peak of racial disparity in the pandemic’s first wave, Black Americans were dying more than three times as much as white Americans.

structural factors — not only race but class and education, too — appear to loom just as large, complicating any intuitive model of what went wrong here that emphasizes the pandemic culture war above all else.

Especially in the initial phases of spread, it can be hard to disentangle the effects of policy and behavioral response from somewhat random drivers like where the virus arrived first, what sorts of places those were and what kinds of people populated them, and even what the weather was like

This dynamic changed almost on a dime with the introduction of vaccines, with an enormous gap opening up between Democrats and Republicans in 2021

the excess mortality data collected here suggests that however self-destructive red states and Republican individuals seemed to be, in 2020, the ultimate cost of that recklessness was less dramatic.

For Americans without college degrees, the number is also 67 percent, compared with 85 percent of college graduates. For uninsured adults under 65, it is just 60 percent

He predicted critics of the new law "will threaten, boycott, sue, demonize and team up with their friends in the national media to call me everything in the book."

The new law imposes new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, empowers state officials to take over local elections boards, limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water.

"It's like the Christmas tree of goodies for voter suppression," Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan said on the Senate floor

"In large part because of the racial disparities in areas outside of voting -- such as socioeconomic status, housing, and employment opportunities -- the Voter Suppression Bill disproportionately impacts Black voters, and interacts with these vestiges of discrimination in Georgia to deny Black voters (an) equal opportunity to participate in the political process and/or elect a candidate of their choice," the lawsuit states.

The package is part of a national Republican effort that aims to restrict access to the ballot box following record turnout in the election.

Voting rights advocates say the state's rapid-fire action -- and plans in other Republican-controlled states to pass restrictions of their own -- underscores the need for federal legislation to set a national baseline for voting rules.

"Now, more than ever, Americans must demand federal action to protect voting rights," she said in a statement.

Advocates said they were alarmed by measures that will allow any Georgian to lodge an unlimited number of challenges to voter registrations and eligibility, saying it could put a target on voters of color. And Democrats in the Georgia Senate on Thursday lambasted measures that boot the secretary of state as chairman of the state elections board and allow lawmakers to install his replacement, giving lawmakers three of five appointments.

Another provision shortens the runoff cycle from the current nine weeks to just four weeks

Republicans scaled back some restrictive provisions from earlier iterations of the legislation, including a proposed repeal of no-excuse absentee voting.

As of February, state legislators in 43 states have introduced more than 250 bills with restrictive voting provisions, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

20,000 conservative activists it said had lobbied lawmakers to pass the overhaul.

Last November, Biden became the first Democrat in nearly three decades to win the state. And strong voter turnout in January helped send two Democrats to the US Senate, flipping control of the chamber to their party. One of those new senators, Raphael Warnock, captured his seat in a special election and will be on the ballot again in 2022.

And voters who seek absentee ballots have to provide a copy of their identification or the number of their Georgia driver's license or state ID to both apply for and return the ballot. The also prohibits the secretary of state's office from sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications, as it did before the 2020 primaries due to the coronavirus pandemic.

At the time, Watson was investigating the secretary of state's office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's audit of more than 15,000 signatures in Cobb County, outside Atlanta. Results of the audit found no evidence of fraudulent mail-in ballots and Biden was declared winner of Georgia in the election.close dialogSign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.Sign up for CNN's CNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. Please enter above Sign Me UpNo ThanksBy subscribing, you agree to ourprivacy policy.You're on the list for CNN'sCNN's Chris Cillizza cuts through the political spin and tells you what you need to know. close dialog/* effects for .bx-campai

"I hope you are going back two years as opposed to checking one against the other," Trump can be heard saying on the call. "Because that would just be a signature check that didn't mean anything."

"But if you go back two years, and if you can get to Fulton, you are going to find things that are going to be unbelievable," the then-President said. "The dishonesty that we've heard from. But Fulton is the mother lode."

Investigators in both probes are interested in Trump's call to Watson, according to sources familiar with the probes.

One is the January phone call where Trump pushed Raffensperger to "find" votes to overturn the election results after his loss to Biden. The other involves the call Trump made on December 23 to Watson.

"If Mr. Raffensperger didn't want to receive calls about the election, he shouldn't have run for secretary of state," Miller said in the statement.

Georgia State Patrol spokesman Lt. W. Mark Riley told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Cannon "was advised that she was disturbing what was going on inside and if she did not stop, she would be placed under arrest." Cannon's arrest warrant alleges that she "stomped" on an officer's foot three times as she was being apprehended and escorted out of the property, the AJC reported.

Several videos posted online show arresting officers were told repeatedly that Cannon is a state lawmaker.As she is being pulled away, Cannon identifies herself as a Georgia state lawmaker and demands to know why she is being arrested.

Other officers then arrive to block onlookers from interfering. They eventually bring a shouting Cannon backwards outside and into the back of a Georgia State Capitol patrol car.Cannon is 5 foot 2, according to her arrest record. Her arrest by several larger, white law enforcement officers and the image of her being brought through the Capitol prompted widespread condemnation on social media overnight. And her arrest prompted comparisons to civil rights and police brutality protests from this summer as well as those of the 1960s

Georgia's Constitution says lawmakers "shall be free from arrest during sessions of the General Assembly" except for treason, felony or breach of the peace.Cannon was charged and brought to a local jail. By 11 p.m. she had been released, according to her attorney Gerald A. Griggs, who spoke to a group of reporters and supporters outside the jail.

Griggs told the crowd that Cannon sustained bruising from her arrest. He was joined outside the jail by Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who visited Cannon in jail. He told the group that he is also Cannon's pastor.

The senator questioned what made Cannon's actions "so dangerous" that warranted her arrest.