A federal judge has ruled that Georgia's statewide election of its five public service commissioners illegally dilutes Black voting power. The judge on Friday ordered the state to not prepare ballots for two races that had been scheduled in November.

Friday on Political Rewind: After claiming the 2020 election was rigged, Republicans are mobilizing election volunteers and disputing individual voter registrations statewide. Plus, teachers are better-paid this school year, but they face new restrictions on teaching race and gender.

A change in a Georgia website may have resulted in a sharp drop in people registering to vote as they obtained driver's licenses. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution finds the share of Georgians registering or updating information through the Department of Driver Services fell from 79% in 2020 to 39% last year.

The fire station voting sites used for two smaller, rural precincts had few Election Day voters and caused extra problems for elections officials.

The majority-white, majority Republican rural county planned to move from seven to one polling place because of scarce resources and a change in voter behavior. 

Klobuchar during a virtual panel Thursday with state lawmakers said that she met this week with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-N.Y.), along with Manchin and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, to discuss crafting a bill to protect and expand voting rights, as well as require states to use independent commissions for redistricting.

The original lawsuit, filed last summer, claims the Georgia Public Service Commission’s statewide at-large districts dilute the voting strength of the state’s Black residents and that the state should move to regional districts represented by one commissioner.

During a panel discussion, state lawmakers from Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida discussed how they’ve fought against restrictive elections measures introduced and passed in their legislatures.

A U.S. Senate committee gathered in downtown Atlanta on Monday to hear how shortened runoff timeframes, tighter absentee ballot deadlines, and new state powers over local election officials are cause for Congress to expand voting protections through pending federal legislation. 

Monday on Political Rewind: Sen. Amy Klobuchar is in Atlanta today to hold a field hearing on the impact of Georgia’s new election law on voters of color. It’s unlikely that any Republicans on the committee will attend the hearing, which Klobuchar hopes will shine a spotlight on the need to pass a federal voting rights act.

Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans are doing a bit of counterprogramming today. At the same time of the Klobuchar event, GOP House leaders are holding a committee hearing to look at rising violent crime in Atlanta. And Gov. Brian Kemp has scheduled a conference call with reporters to defend the new election law.

The director of the conservative Heritage Action for America claims the lobbying organization played a pivotal role in some of the most controversial provisions in Georgia’s sweeping new voting overhaul.

Georgia’s controversial new voting laws took center stage Tuesday at a U.S. Senate hearing where majority Democrats blasted changes in state voting rules as a revival of the Jim Crow era of segregation.

A national election researcher says Georgia’s controversial new voting law is a “step backward” from the state’s 2020 election, but the state remains one of the most accessible in the nation for its vote-by-mail and in-person voting options. 

Both Republican and Democratic elections officials in Colorado routinely praise its election system as a “gold standard” for voting across the country, and its turnout rate of 76.4% was second-best among states in 2020, according to the U.S. Elections Project. That’s significantly higher than Georgia’s turnout rate of 67.7%

Monday on Political Rewind: Criticism of the new election bill continued over the weekend as the measure, signed by Gov. Brian Kemp Thursday evening, receives nationwide attention. Democrats in Congress say the Georgia bill highlights the need for H.R. 1., the federal election bill currently awaiting action in the U.S. Senate.

In other news, Kemp signaled he will soon lift most of Georgia's coronavirus restrictions. Is his decision based on the advice of his public health team?