About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 31, 2020)
Trump push on $2,000 relief checks flops as GOP-led Senate won’t vote, inside, 3 a Miller, state leaders SS,, sued over election Lawsuit alleges legislature prevented from constitutional role BY NICK WATSON nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com Gainesville’s state Sen. Butch Miller and other Georgia leaders were sued in a U.S. District Court lawsuit concerning the Nov. 3 election concerning state legislatures’ constitutional role and changes on absen tee ballot reviews, according to court documents. The lawsuit was filed Dec. 22 in the fed eral district court for the District of Colum bia on behalf of voters alliance groups in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ari zona as well as the Election Integrity Fund in Michigan. Georgia state Sens. William T. Ligon and Brandon Beach are also listed as plaintiffs. The lawsuit claims that state legisla tures are being “prohibited from fulfilling their constitutional responsibil ity” under Article II of the Consti tution, which concerns meeting after the election to certify votes and subsequently certifying presi dential electors. “This inability to meet has existed from election day and continues through various con- gressionally set deadlines for the appointment of presidential electors and the counting of presidential elector votes,” according to the lawsuit. “The states legislatures of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona are unable to review the manner in which the election was conducted, are prevented from exercising their investigative powers and are unable to vote, debate or as a body speak to the conduct of the election.” The lawsuit is seeking a declar atory judgment for current and future elections that certain state laws are unconstitutional as well as enjoining Vice President Mike Pence and Congress “from count ing presidential elector votes from states unless their respective state legislatures vote affirmatively in a post-election vote to certify their presidential electors.” A group of Republicans in the Demo cratic-majority House have already said they will object on President Donald Trump’s behalf during the Jan. 6 count of electoral votes, and they had needed just a single senator to go along with them to force votes in both chambers. ■ Please see LAWSUIT, 4A Miller ‘It takes a toll on you SCOn ROGERS I The Times Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton Nurse Educator Sally Dersch has taken on caring for COVID-19 patients in addition to her job due to rising numbers of cases. NGHS nurse educator is on front lines of pandemic Hometown heroes COVID-19 has been hard on many, but for these frontline health care workers, its effects are an everyday reality. Over the next two weeks, we share the stories of a few of those who have risen to the occasion and done their jobs well in the face of unmatched pressure professionally and sometimes personally. We need heroes in this battle, and through their dedication, they have shown us what that looks like. We worked with Northeast Georgia Health System to identify those we are profiling. If you have a story about a frontline health care worker who has made a difference, please submit your story to news@gainesvilletimes.com. BY JEFF GILL jgill@gainesvilletimes.com Sally Dersch’s new job at Northeast Georgia Medical Center Braselton nor mally calls for her to work with new nurses, orienting them to their new workplace and helping with continuing education. But with COVID-19 numbers reach ing peak levels this winter, these aren’t normal times. Dersch hardly spends her days confined to an office. “Right now, it’s all hands on deck,” Dersch said in a recent interview. “Just before I read my email, I was (in the hos pital) starting IVs and medicating patients. Anytime they need me, I go out there and either take patients or assist with the flow — whatever they need me to do. “Even when I’m educating, I’m doing it on the floor in real time with real patients,” she said of her new post, which began in September. Winter is busy anyway in the emer gency department, where Dersch is based, because of the seasonal flu and ■ Please see DERSCH, 3A ATLANTA — Investigators who audited the signatures on more than 15,000 absentee bal lot envelopes in one Georgia county found “no fraudulent absentee ballots,” according to the audit report. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced earlier this month that his office would work with the Georgia Bureau of Inves tigation to do the signature audit in suburban Atlanta’s Cobb County. Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said at the time that Presi dent Donald Trump’s campaign had alleged that Cobb County didn’t properly conduct the signature match for the June primary. “This audit disproves the only credible alle gations the Trump campaign had against the strength of Georgia’s signature match pro cesses,” Raffensperger said in a news release Monday. President-elect Joe Biden narrowly won Georgia by about 12,000 votes out of the 5 mil lion cast, but Trump and his allies have made repeated baseless claims of widespread elec tion fraud. The investigators reviewed 15,118 absen tee ballot envelopes from randomly selected boxes, about 10% of the total received in Cobb County for the November general election, according to the audit report. That sample size was chose to “reach a 99% confidence level in the results.” The Cobb County elections department had “a 99.99% accuracy rate in performing correct signature verification procedures,” the audit report says. There were two cases where the audit team determined that a voter should have been con tacted to fix a problem. In both those cases, investigators interviewed the voters and deter mined they were the ones who cast the ballots, the report says. Georgians can request absentee ballots either through an online portal that Raffens perger established in September or by submit ting an application. For online requests, they provide their driver’s license number and date of birth to verify their identity. If they use an application, they must sign it for verification. When an application is received, county election workers compare the signature on the application to the voter’s signature on file, and if it is consistent, a ballot is mailed, ■ Please see FRAUD, 4A Authorities: Hall business sees potential ransomware BY NICK WATSON nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com A Gainesville business reported their email stopped working and saw a popup of ransomware asking for money, according to authorities. The Hall County Sheriff’s Office took a report considered “computer trespass” Sunday, Dec. 27, from Eskimo Cold Storage on Athens Highway. Lt. Greg Cochran said the business reported its email stopped working and then a “pop up” of “ransomware appeared on the screen asking for a large sum of money.” Cochran said the case was out of the Sheriff’s Office’s jurisdiction, and authorities “believed it occurred in another country.” Eskimo Cold Storage Vice President Karen Reece declined to comment. Murrayville Park may reopen soon after closing a decade ago BY MEGAN REED mreed@gainesvilletimes.com Murrayville Park will likely reopen in early 2021 after closing a decade ago amid county budget cuts. The park on Bark Camp Road in North Hall County will have ten nis courts, ball fields, a playground and a pavilion, Becky Ruffner, marketing and public relations specialist for Hall County Parks and Leisure, said. New restrooms have already been installed there. Ruffner said the budget for pre paring the park to reopen is about $1.5 million in Special Purpose Local Option Sales tax funding. It is one of the county’s remaining projects from SPLOST VII, which ended this summer. The 1% sales tax is periodically approved by vot ers and used by local governments for capital projects. The park, which closed in 2011, had been set to reopen in 2019. But the county stayed busy with other projects, including the parks department’s master plan and the reopening of Platt Park in South Hall, Ruffner said. COVID-19 has also slowed the reopening process, she said. “In the last couple of years, we were just able to secure funding to restore the park ... and add some new features to the park and get it ready to open,” Ruffner said. “I do think the people in Murrayville are happy and are excited about the park. We do hear from some of those folks occasionally.” After being closed for almost a decade, the park will also need some repaving. ■ Please see PARK, 4A Crews work Wednesday, Dec. 30, preparing the soil at a new restroom building for grass seed at Murrayville Park. Hall County hopes to reopen Murrayville Park in the spring after it closed during the recession due to county budget cuts. SCOTT ROGERS The Times
