Early voting for Georgia Senate runoffs can start Saturday, state Supreme Court rules [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Some counties in Georgia can start early voting on Saturday for the Senate run-off election.
• State Republicans tried to block the early voting but the state Supreme Court denied the directive.
• Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock is running against Republican challenger Herschel Walker for a closely watched Senate seat.

Georgia counties were allowed to start early voting this Saturday for the Senate runoff election when the state Supreme Court blocked state Republicans’ directive to hold off the early voting. Voters will once again decide between Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, issued a directive that blocks counties from voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That directive was blocked last week by a Fulton County judge, whose decision was upheld by the state Supreme Court in a one-sentence unanimous ruling on Wednesday.

According to a Twitter post on Tuesday from Gabriel Sterling, one of Georgia’s top election officials, 18 of Georgia’s 159 counties had planned to offer early voting on Saturday.

This is the second runoff for a Georgia Senate race in less than two years.

While the vote will no longer determine who holds control over the Senate, another seat in the upper chamber would still give either side a boost.

The Democrats have already maintained the narrowest possible majority, which they held for the past two years, when they won 50 seats. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, the Republicans managed to win a narrow majority.

For the first half of President Joe Biden’s four-year term, Democrats held a razor-thin majority in the 50-50 Senate. Vice President Kamala Harris served as the tie-breaking vote. This narrow majority still led to several hurdles for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer since a few of his colleagues, including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, voted against some of their legislative agenda.

Source: Reuters