Georgia is in the spotlight in the current US electoral cycle, especially after the unexpected victory of Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, which provoked accusations of fraud, until now unproven, by his rival, former President Donald Trump. and current Republican candidate, who threatens to ignore an unfavorable result.
“Georgia is the absolute center of the universe in these elections. It really is. We did it last time, we were the ones who handed Biden his Administration. And we are going to do it again,” an exultant Sloane Warren, a volunteer, told EFE. of the Democratic Party in Marietta, in Cobb County and who was collecting posters to campaign for the candidate of this party, Kamala Harris.
This county, Fulton’s northern neighbor (which is home to Atlanta), is perhaps one of the best examples of the demographic changes that have occurred in the last 15 years in Georgia, and that perhaps in the long run led to the victory of the current US president four years ago. .
The Democrats highlight that middle-class Americans with higher education have settled in this suburban area, who have led to the local victory of the Democrats in the last two elections and have turned Cobb into one of the few blue areas ( the color of that party) in until recently Republican Georgia.
Since 1996, Republican candidates have won the electoral votes granted by this southern state, until in 2020, with almost 12,000 votes difference, Biden took them from Trump, who was seeking re-election that year, and Georgia was vital in his way to the White House by adding the 16 votes he gave him.
“We call it a swing county in a swing state,” that is, without a defined voting pattern, Phil, a Democratic volunteer, told EFE about the characteristics of Cobb, which like other areas north of Atlanta has mutated from Republican to “a mix” and hence, for example, the local sheriff is a Democrat.
The failed attempts of the Republicans
Trump has never acknowledged his defeat in the 2020 elections and launched never-proven accusations of fraud, including in Georgia, where a manual recount was carried out that year that did not change Biden’s victory.
The former president (2017-2021) has praised more than once the three Republican members who make up the majority of the State Electoral Board, and who recently put forward new and questioned rules for this electoral process, which included the mandatory manual vote counting.
Circuit Judge Thomas Cox annulled these new rules, after declaring them “illegal, unconstitutional and void”, a verdict appealed by the Republican National Committee, but which was endorsed last Tuesday by the Georgia Supreme Court.
Warren was one of the people who was at one of the electoral board sessions in which the manual count rule was intended to be passed, and she says that given the number of people who showed up, the session ended abruptly.
The rule still passed, although “thank God it’s been overturned” in the courts, a relieved Warren said. “(The Republican board members) tried,” but they fell to “the power of the people,” the mother added.
The latest opinion polls give Trump a slight margin in Georgia, four percentage points according to one from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but the Republican still calls on his followers to stay alert.
On the Republican side, the “key” to prevent “very bad things from happening,” as the candidate says, is to vote early, as is already happening in Georgia, where more than 2 million early votes have been registered. .
Michael O’Neill, a worker at the early voting center set up at the Theron Ussery community center, in Macon, central Georgia, confirms that the numbers of those who have gone to vote before voting day (November 5) are unpublished
He welcomed the decision of the state Supreme Court, because, otherwise, “it would take a long time to manually count the votes and then you would have to pay extra,” a scenario for which they were not prepared, according to what he told EFE.
“It’s excellent how it’s going now, it’s all there. All the ballots are counted and accounted for for everyone,” he defended.
He added that Republicans are more attentive and vigilant. “I think they are looking to see if there is any problem or some type of incident that is happening, but there is none and there is nothing to find,” he said.
