WABE’s Week in Review: Senate Runoff Races, Election Rules Reviewed And Covid-19 Cases Surge

“It’s outside money coming in to influence the people of Georgia and the kind of that right now in [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell,” said Rick Dent, who tracks campaign spending for the political consulting firm Matrix LLC.

Besides two existing Senate PACs, McConnell is also involved with the new Peachtree PAC, which dropped more than $40 million ad buys this week. The origin of that money can’t be tracked until after the runoff Jan. 5.  U.S. Senate Democrats are also operating special runoff PACs, including  Georgia Honor and The Georgia Way.

Surrogates stopping by… 

Vice President Mike Pence made his third trip to Georgia during the Senate runoff campaign. And he called on a crowd of hundreds in Augusta to cast absentee ballots for Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

This comes after President Donald Trump’s questioning of the security of absentee ballots before the general election appeared to dampen absentee turnout for Republicans in November.

By the way, Pence is set to come back Dec. 17 for stops in Columbus and Macon.

Meantime, President-elect Joe Biden is set to rally for Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Atlanta on Dec. 15.

Elections chief under attack again …

Georgia is one of the states Trump and others falsely claim had widespread voter fraud. Texas filed a lawsuit against Georgia in an ultimate effort to overturn the vote for Biden. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are also named in that suit.

Legal experts and even some Republicans (even some Republicans in Texas) say the suit is far-fetched and without merit. Trump is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow him to join it.

Meantime, Georgia Republican House Speaker David Ralston, in a move critics say amounts to a power grab, says he’s “shocked” and “disappointed”  the Secretary of State’s office didn’t show up to a hearing on election irregularities Thursday.

Now Ralston wants politicians to select the chief of elections in the state.

“I think it’s time in Georgia that we look at an alternative way of electing our secretary of state,” said Ralston. “Frankly, I like the option of the General Assembly electing that individual.”

Of course, that would take power directly away from the voters, who currently elect the position. It is also a longshot for Ralston, who would need two-thirds approval at the state Capitol to make the move.

Support for Raffensperger… 

Just as Raffensperger –a staunch Republican—is facing threats from within the state and within his own party, and even death threats from some Trump supporters, he is also getting praise from some Republicans.

Former California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s organization, the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, will give Raffensperger A “Democracy Action Hero” award next week.

The institute promotes post-partisanship and urges leaders to put policy over politics.

Grants help counties pull off a successful election… 

It was a record turnout in November, and as it turns out, significant grant money helped elections officials handle all those voters.

It was a welcome financial relief to many counties as department budgets are on the decline.

But, as Emil Moffatt reported, some groups have raised concerns that private funding could influence elections.

Vaccine availability and safety as COVID-19 cases hit record high in Georgia… 

Health officials and experts have said for some time now that they were worried about the Thanksgiving and December holidays. They said people traveling and gathering together indoors –as the weather turned colder—would lead to a spike in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and possibly deaths.

That trend is certainly true across the country, and on Thursday, Georgia saw its record one day total for confirmed cases, breaking the record from just days earlier.

The state department of public health reported 6,062 new cases in just one day. That breaks the previous high by more than 1,000 cases.

And coronavirus hospitalizations in the state continue their steady climb, approaching levels during Georgia’s summer pandemic surge.

So far, Gov. Brian Kemp has declined to put additional restrictions in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.

But he announced Georgia should have limited doses of COVID-19 vaccine ready to distribute next week.

That comes as U-S regulators have given emergency approval to a vaccine from drug-maker Pfizer. Regulators are set to consider another vaccine from Moderna soon.

Vaccine safety and how well they’ll work was the topic on a recent episode of our coronavirus podcast, “Did You Wash Your Hands?”

When your job helping the sick could cost you your home… 

Fulton County has received more than 10,000 new eviction cases since the coronavirus outbreak began.

In that number are the stories of this pandemic: People who have dealt with unemployment or became sick with the coronavirus.

In Atlanta, that was the experience of a traveling nurse named Ray. She caught COVID-19, lost her work and fell behind on her rent.