Stephen Fowler

When hundreds of local elections officials gathered in a sunny island conference room in Georgia last week, there was a pause for prayer and reflection on a year like no other.

"It's really, really great to see all of you here and all the new faces that we have met," Macon-Bibb County elections supervisor Jeanetta Watson said before letting out a long, deep sigh. "We have really gone through a trial and tribulation."

Across the country, the once-a-decade mapmaking process known as redistricting is about to get underway.

In Georgia, when state lawmakers held their first virtual town hall seeking public feedback on the process, several commenters stood out amid the sea of Zoom squares. High school and college students — who were in elementary and middle school the last time voting district lines were drawn — took turns explaining how the mapmaking process will affect future generations and emphasizing that their voices should be heard.

If you don't follow politics in Georgia closely — or even if you do — you might be forgiven for not knowing much about The Georgia Star News.

Founded just after the November election when President Biden narrowly flipped the state by about 12,000 votes, it looks like a regular news website with a lifestyle section, a widget for the weather and stories about local and national goings-on.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed a massive overhaul of election laws, shortly after the Republican-controlled state legislature approved it. The bill enacts new limitations on mail-in voting, expands most voters' access to in-person early voting and caps a months-long battle over voting in a battleground state.

"With Senate bill 202, Georgia will take another step toward ensuring our elections are secure, accessible and fair," Kemp told reporters Thursday evening.

In a newly revealed phone call, President Donald Trump asked a Georgia law enforcement official to find evidence of fraud with absentee-by-mail ballots, the latest revelation in his unsuccessful attempt to overturn the state's election results.

"Whatever you can do, Frances, it would be — it's a great thing," Trump said to Georgia Secretary of State chief investigator Frances Watson in December. "When the right answer comes out, you'll be praised."

Updated at 12:31 p.m. ET

The Fulton County District Attorney's office has launched a criminal probe into former President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn Georgia's election results, including a call pressuring Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes for him. The county includes Atlanta, Georgia's capital.

After an election that saw record voter turnout, with many of those voters casting their ballots early and by mail, some Republican state lawmakers are proposing a wave of new voting laws that would effectively make it more difficult to vote in future elections.

The proposals come in the aftermath of the unprecedented onslaught of disinformation about the conduct of the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and some of his allies in the Republican Party.

It's been more than a week since the Georgia Senate runoff elections delivered control of Congress to Democrats.

But inside the Bartow County, Ga., Senior Center on Tuesday, a dozen teams worked in pairs to do a hand recount of more than 43,000 votes cast in the Jan. 5 runoffs.

The final margin for the races are outside the threshold for a recount, and the voters in this county an hour northwest of Atlanta are about 75% Republican — so the result isn't close, or expected to change.

Updated at 9:15 p.m. ET

An angry President Trump pushed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to overturn the state's presidential election result and appeared to at least partly blame Raffensperger for what could be lower turnout in Tuesday's runoff elections, which will decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to a recording of a phone call obtained by Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Georgia's nearly 5 million votes in the presidential race will be counted for a third time, as President Trump's campaign has formally asked for a recount because his loss is within the legal margin for that request.

Updated at 5:23 p.m. ET

President-elect Joe Biden was officially certified the winner of Georgia's 16 electoral votes Friday after a statewide recount ended this week.

Hours before the deadline, a weary secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, delivered a short but emphatic speech that "numbers don't lie" about Biden's victory.