Georgia Today: New election rule requires hand count of ballots; Student walk out for gun safety

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Friday, Sept. 20. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, the Georgia Election Board passes a rule requiring a hand count of ballots. Vice President Kamala Harris rallies voters in Atlanta and hundreds of students across the state walk out to demonstrate for gun safety. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

 

Story 1:

Peter Biello: The state election board passed arguably the most contentious of 11 new rules that it had been considering at a closely watched meeting today. The vote goes against the advice of Georgia's secretary of state, attorney general and local election officials. GPB's Grant Blankenship reports from the state capitol.

Grant Blankenship: A 3-to-2 largely party-line vote approved the rule, mandating a hand count of paper ballots at the close of polls at every poll site before the actual tabulation of votes or even before submitting them to county election heads. Many local elections directors who spoke before the vote, like Tate Hall of Cobb County, said they oppose the rule because its mere passage violates the federal National Voting Rights Act by coming inside the 90 day quiet period before an election.

Tate Hall: Yesterday, Cobb County emailed just over 1,000 ballots to our uniformed and overseas voters. First ballots are out the door. The election has officially begun.

Grant Blankenship: In a memo to the State Election Board, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said the hand count of ballot rule is not at all supported by state law. Carr said other proposed rules were likely an overstep of board authority, too. For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Atlanta.

Caption

Kamala Harris

Story 2:

Peter Biello: For the first time since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to deliver a speech focused squarely on abortion rights. The speech is scheduled for this afternoon in Cobb County, north of Atlanta. And it comes as reports emerge of women dying in the wake of Georgia's abortion ban. It's part of a turn toward personal stories her campaign is focusing on. GPB's Chase McGee reports, last night she rallied voters in an online event featuring Oprah Winfrey and guests from Georgia.

Chase McGee: Rally guests included a student shot and injured during a school shooting at Apalachee High School. A gunman opened fire in her ninth grade algebra class. Flanked by her parents, Natalie Griffith spoke with Harris about her injuries.

Kamala Harris: Where were you shot? Where were you physically shot?

Natalie Griffith: Right here on my shoulder and then around here. Right wrist.

Chase McGee: Harris says she plans to address gun violence with policy, saying that while she supports the Second Amendment, she also supports common sense legislation, including an assault weapons ban. Other guests included a Georgia mother who lost her daughter after delayed abortion care. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee.

Peter Biello: Meanwhile, Donald Trump's campaign is expected to announce a blitz of Trump/Vance appearances next week, including a Savannah rally. The former president also is expected at the Georgia Alabama football game in Tuscaloosa on Sept. 28.

 

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Hundreds of students at dozens of schools across the state walked out of class this morning in solidarity with students at Northeast Georgia's Apalachee High School. The demonstrations were student-led, but many were school-sanctioned, so students did not leave their campuses. Students remembered the four people killed in the Apalachee High School shooting this month and urged political leaders to do more to curb gun violence. In Winder, the last of four funerals for the shooting victims drew hundreds of mourners. Community members gathered last night for a viewing at St. Matthew's Catholic Church of 14 year old Christian Gabriel Angulo. And this afternoon, hundreds gathered in a standing-room-only service. Angulo is the last of four victims to be laid to rest, marking the end of a two-week stretch of funerals and memorial services across Northeast Georgia. Barrow County School officials say classes will resume at Apalachee High School on Tuesday.

 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: New hemp regulations are set to take effect Oct. 1. Starting a week from Tuesday, retailers will be prohibited from selling hemp products to anyone under the age of 21. The new law also imposes on manufacturers labeling, packaging and testing requirements. Hemp growers, manufacturers and retailers will have to obtain licenses and pay a licensing fee. Violators will be subject to criminal misdemeanor charges and civil penalties. The new law prohibits the sale of any hemp products containing more than the legal limit of 0.3% of THC, the psychoactive drug that gets users high. That means retail stores may continue to sell gummies, tinctures and nonalcoholic CBD beverages, but anything smokable and food products will no longer be permitted.

 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: Four children might not be breathing on their own if not for innovative technology from Georgia Tech and pediatric cardiologists at Children's Health Care of Atlanta. But the support is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And Atlanta is one of a handful of places nationwide to offer infants the surgery. GPB's Ellen Eldridge has more.

Ellen Eldridge: Justice Altidor and her twin sister Journey speak their own language.

Justice Altidor: *speaking twin language*

Ellen Eldridge: The 4-year-olds might not have been speaking at all without an experimental surgery to keep Justice's airway from collapsing when she was an infant. Their mother, Emanuela Altidor, says she knew Justice had a heart condition before she gave birth to the twins.

Emanuela Altidor: Well, they knew she had the double aortic arch. They just didn't know how severe it was until she was born. And then they were on standby, by the grace of God, to take her and whisk her away.

Ellen Eldridge: Because of the advanced knowledge of Justice's heart issue, doctors rushed her to the neonatal intensive care unit before Mom could even say hello and hold her baby.

Emanuela Altidor: After I did recovery, I was able to see her and she was intubated and she stayed that way, all the way til she got the surgery done — four months later.

Ellen Eldridge: Dr. Kevin Maher is a pediatric cardiologist with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. He says infant heart issues also often come with weak tracheas: airways not strong enough for babies to breathe. Maher says in his hospital, these are some of the most common issues they see in neonatal intensive care. But there aren't great treatments available.

Dr. Kevin Maher: You know, we've had these kids that can spend, you know, their entire life with a breathing tube. And the moment you would take out those breathing tube, the airways would collapse and they would go — immediately go into respiratory arrest.

Ellen Eldridge: Now, a team of Georgia Tech engineers have developed a custom 3D-printed splint to support the newborn airway. Think of it as a cast on the baby's own trachea, but stronger. Children's is one of only five hospitals in the nation offering the surgery. And while the procedure waits for full FDA approval, every single surgery has to wait for its own go-ahead from the agency. So far, Justice is the fourth patient at Children's approved for the supportive device. The medical team submitted Justice's case to the FDA for approval, which they got in October 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emanuela Altidor: We're recording in the hospital. For the most part, they were, allowing me to go back and forth because I did have Journey still, here, and needed to care for her as well.

Ellen Eldridge: Justice could eat and breathe on her own just a few weeks after surgery, and she was discharged from the hospital. The Altidore family recently celebrated the twins' fourth birthday in the Bahamas. The family is back home now, preparing for back to school with a math skills board game.

Emanuela Altidor: Zero! Okay.

Ellen Eldridge: There is no after surgery. The device just dissolves in the throat over time. And aside from the scars, all Justice knows about the surgery are the stories she hears.

Emanuela Altidor: You had a surgery, right?

Justice Altidor: Yes. Since I was a baby, I have had a surgery.

Emanuela Altidor: After she first came out the surgery, you can feel the plastic in her chest. Now, it's just — It's just a flat surface. You wouldn't even know that she had something done.

Emanuela Altidor (to Justice): Where's your scars from your surgery?

Justice Altidor: Mr. Potato!

Emanuela Altidor: Oh, you're being silly.

Ellen Eldridge: Altidor says she can only imagine what Justice's life could have been.

Emanuela Altidor: Well, Mommy's so happy you had your surgery, because now you can say stuff like "Mr. Potato!"

Ellen Eldridge: Dr. Maher says a fifth use of the 3D airway at Children's is being planned, pending the OK of the surgery from the FDA. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldridge.

Story 6:

Peter Biello: Addiction care providers have been invited to apply for part of George's share of settlements with major opioid manufacturers. There are a lot of ways that money could be spent. People in active addiction and those closest to them have some ideas about how, as GPB's Sofi Gratas reports.

Chandler Seklecki: Yo yo yo, what up though?

Sofi Gratas: It's past sundown and Chandler Seklecki and Sydney Mckee have pulled into a laundromat parking lot in Augusta.

Person: Hi.

Sofi Gratas: Their job: to distribute supplies that aid in safe drug use.

Person: I put it in here?

Sofi Gratas: One of their regulars brings them a plastic red bin of used needles and dumps it into the sharps container that Chandler and Sydney drive around with. Sydney goes to the trunk of the car to grab new needles.

Chandler Seklecki: It's gonna be 200.

Sydney McKee: They all longs?

Chandler Seklecki: Yeah.

Sofi Gratas: This exchange has been legal since 2019, when Georgia passed a syringe service program law to help prevent the spread of diseases like HIV and hepatitis C. It's an example of what's called harm reduction. But Chandler and Sydney's clients don't just get needles. They also get clean cookers. Cotton used to filter injected drugs. Condoms and water. There's also plenty of Narcan used to reverse overdoses.

People: Oh, word. Yeah. Tourniquets!

Chandler Seklecki: It's like Christmas, right?

Person: Right!

Sofi Gratas: The hope is all this stuff will keep these women and their friends from dying. Over five years, more people have overdosed from opioids here in Richmond County than in any other county within Region 2, a boundary created for opioid settlement fund distribution that also includes Macon and Athens. The idea is that projects in this community and others like it could get grants from court settlements to tackle the opioid epidemic. Harm reduction worker Sydney McKee says it's vital during this process that people directly affected are heard.

Sydney McKee: When you want an expert's opinion, you go to the expert. And the experts are the users. So we have — they have to be included in these big decisions.

Sofi Gratas: That's how Richmond County's needle exchange started. About 50,000 needles are distributed here every year, largely thanks to Chandler Seklecki. He's lost count of the times he's been revived by Narcan.

Chandler Seklecki: I've absolutely stopped breathing in a lot of these hotels.

Sofi Gratas: Now he's in recovery.

Chandler Seklecki: Being an IV user for 20-plus years myself, the fact of the matter is, you are going to inject drugs with whatever utensils you've got — like, whatever gear you've got your hands on. It's — it's going to happen.

Sofi Gratas: Even if that gear is unsafe. So with donations from other users, he started ordering needles online and handing them out.

Chandler Seklecki: If I didn't do something about it, nobody else would.

Sofi Gratas: Today, the supplies Chandler and Sidney hand out are paid for by the Georgia Harm Reduction Coalition. They hope if the larger organization applies for funds, that it will trickle down to pay for more of the work they do. Some see this work as the first step in helping someone in addiction. Others worry harm reduction prolongs drug use. But though it doesn't happen often, Chandler and Sydney do connect people to addiction treatment, too. We pull into a motel to meet Robbie and Sarah. We're not using their last names. By now, the sharps container is almost halfway full.

Sarah: This helps a lot because it gives us a way to stay clean, to stay scar-free.

Sofi Gratas: Sarah is what harm reductionist would call a secondary. Someone who both benefits personally from a needle exchange but also shares with others.

Sarah: And that's the rule. Like, if we give somebody, a couple bags or whatever, we're like, hey, don't sell these. Don't do nothing else with these other than give them to people that need them.

Sofi Gratas: But sometimes there's not enough to go around. Sarah remembers a recent call she got about an active overdose.

Sarah: My homegirls are like, "Oh my God, he's dead, he's dead, he's dead! We need Narcan. We need Narcan." I was like, "Robbie. Narcan. Run."

Sofi Gratas: He ran a mile away to the motel managed by April.

April: How are you?

Sofi Gratas: She says six people have overdosed here since December.

April: I should be handing room keys with a thing of Narcan.

Sofi Gratas: April thinks money should fund more harm reduction.

April: You'd probably see a lot less deaths.

Sofi Gratas: But also:

April: Another step in the right direction would be to open a clinic close by.

Sofi Gratas: There's one rehab center in Augusta and two centers that offer medication for opioid use disorder. But April says they're too expensive and not where the users are. Plus, there's no recovery center where people through rehab can maintain sobriety and where people like her or even first responders can find Narcan easily.

April: Where the deputies can go 2 miles up the road and say "We ran out of Narcan. The city hasn't given us any. We need more."

Sofi Gratas: So far, that job — flooding the streets with Narcan and safe supplies — has largely fallen on the users and those who care about them.

Chandler Seklecki: Robbie, I love you.

Person: Love you, man.

April: Appreciate it, brother.

Sofi Gratas: For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas in Augusta.

 

Story 7:

Peter Biello: Wilderness Outfitters and paddling enthusiasts told state lawmakers today that billions of outdoor recreation dollars are at stake with a new law addressing property and fishing rights. The House Study Committee on Navigable Streams is tasked with defining which Georgia rivers and streams are navigable and thus open to fishing and paddling and which are off-limits. The committee met today at Northeast Georgia's Unicoi State Park near Helen, as it works to implement a property and fishing rights bill signed into law earlier this year.

 

Story 8:

Peter Biello: Georgia has surpassed 100,000 electric vehicle registrations. The State Department of Revenue confirmed the number this week. Frank Morris of Clean Cities Georgia says Georgia's charging network and the price and range of electric vehicles are all improving.

Frank Morris: We're a large state, so 100,000 vehicles doesn't sound like a lot. But if you go back a few years ago, you know the numbers were in the 20,000s. So we are making progress.

Peter Biello: 100,000 represents about 1% of total vehicle registrations in Georgia.

 

Story 9:

Peter Biello: In sports, the Atlanta Dream have clinched a spot in the WNBA playoffs after a 78 to 67 win over the New York Liberty last night. The Dream's Tina Charles had a record night, finishing 10 points and 10 rebounds to break the league records for both career rebounds and double doubles. The Dream and the Liberty will play again Sunday in the first round of the post-season in New York. And in baseball, the Braves kick off a three-game series against the Marlins in Miami tonight. This comes after a 15 to 3 win in Cincinnati yesterday. The Braves remain two games behind the Mets, who occupy the last National League wild card spot. Five home games remain for the Braves, and two of those are against the Mets on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

 

Peter Biello: That's it. Thanks so much for listening to Georgia Today. Because you value this podcast and because you value other things you get from GPB, perhaps Morning Edition or All Things Considered. We ask you to support it with a gift during our fall fun drive. 10 or 15 bucks a month or a one-time gift of $100 and you'll be supporting everything you hear on GPB, whether it's through the air, through the website or podcasts like this one. Give at GPB.org or call (800) 222-4788. And thanks so much. If you want to catch the latest news any time, visit GPB.org/news. And remember to subscribe to this podcast. We will be back in your podcast feed Monday afternoon. If you've got feedback, send it to us by email; the address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. Have a great weekend.

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