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
