The court order will slow the counting of votes and the delivery of election results.

The secretary of state’s office plans to appeal the ruling in the lawsuit filed by the New Georgia Project, a voter registration group that asked the court to intervene to prevent voter disenfranchisement during the presidential election.

“Extending the absentee ballot receipt deadline is a bad idea that will make it nearly impossible for election officials to complete their required post-election tasks in the timeline that is required by law,” Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said.

State law requires election results to be certified 17 days after the election, in this case by Nov. 20.

Absentee ballots proved popular during the June primary, making up almost half of the nearly 2.4 million votes cast.

Over 5 million Georgia voters are expected to participate in November’s election, and many will likely choose to mail in their ballots.

Before Ross’ ruling, they may have done it with some apprehension.

The U.S. Postal Service had warned that mail delivery delays could hold up absentee ballots. Voters were advised to mail their completed ballots at least a week in advance of Election Day, by Oct. 27, according to a letter the USPS sent to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Georgia voters can also cast absentee ballots without having to rely on the Postal Service. Many counties offer voters the option to deposit their ballots in drop boxes until polls close on Election Day.

State law since 2005 has allowed any registered voter in Georgia to request an absentee ballot without having to provide an explanation.

Voters can order an absentee ballot online at ballotrequest.sos.ga.gov. They can also fill out and mail a paper absentee ballot request form to county election offices.

Election officials will begin mailing absentee ballots to voters around Sept. 18. State law prevents absentee ballots from being mailed before 49 days prior to Election Day.

Savannah congregation exits United Methodist Church over LGBTQ policy

Asbury Memorial Church in Savannah appears to be the first congregation in the nation to break away from the United Methodist Church over the denomination’s ban on same-sex weddings and LGBTQ clergy.

In announcing Asbury Memorial’s disaffiliation, church official said they believe it is the first to leave “due to its unequal treatment of LGBTQ people.” Asbury Memorial will continue as an independent, nondenominational congregation.

The request to disaffiliate followed the UMC’s ruling conference decision in February 2019 — on a 54.5% vote by 823 delegates — to reaffirm a policy established in 1972 stating that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”

About 43% of the delegates were from abroad, mostly from Africa, and these representatives overwhelmingly supported the LGBTQ bans, the Savannah church pointed out in a press release.

The Savannah congregation took a vote last September to leave the denomination, with 309 members voting in favor and seven voting against, the church reported.

In support of LGBTQ rights, Asbury Memorial had discontinued all weddings in the church. It will now resume those ceremonies, the church said, “when it is safe to do so after the threat of COVID-19 has lessened in Georgia.”

Campaign spending surges in Perdue-Ossoff showdown

The money continues to pour into the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff.

Ossoff’s team says it set a single-month record for fundraising in Georgia by taking in more than $4.7 million in August.

More money, however, is coming from the outside, feeding both candidates.

The Senate Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Senate Republicans, has spent roughly $5 million to support Perdue and is expected to pour in at least an additional $13.5 million through the fall.

Backing Ossoff is the Senate Majority PAC, which recently announced it plans to spend $7.2 million during the final stretch of the race.

Ossoff, an investigative journalist, is best known for running in 2017′s special election for the 6th Congressional District, when he collected more than $30 million in what was then the most expensive U.S. House race ever. He’s now racing to rebuild that fundraising machine.

Previous fundraising reports show he took in nearly $3 million in July and outpaced Perdue over the three-month period from April to June.

Perdue has yet to report how much he collected in August, but money has not been a problem for the multimillionaire. In July, he reported having about $10.7 million in campaign funds in the bank, far more than the $2.5 million Ossoff had at the time.

Gun safety group teams up again with McBath

U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath is again receiving big help from a former employer, Everytown for Gun Safety, to hold onto her current job.

The group is spending $1.2 million on ads to be broadcast on Atlanta-area TV stations, plus $500,000 on digital ads, all targeting voters in McBath’s 6th Congressional District.

In 2018, Everytown contributed $4 million to McBath’s campaign, when she unseated then-Republican U.S. Rep. Karen Handel.

This year, McBath and Handel are facing off again in what’s considered one of the nation’s most competitive races.

McBath began working for Everytown, which has the backing of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, after her son, Jordan, was shot and killed in 2012.

Everytown’s support for McBath is part of $60 million it will use to back candidates across the nation who support its gun safety message. That’s twice what the group spent two years ago.

The Everytown ads will begin running the week of Sept. 15 and were produced by House Majority PAC, a group focused on electing Democrats to the U.S. House. Separately, House Majority plans to spend $1.3 million on ads in the Atlanta market. That money will be targeted to defend McBath and possibly also help Carolyn Bourdeaux in the 7th Congressional District race.

Tale of the tape differs from Jones’ story about threats

Democratic state Rep. Vernon Jones, who got himself a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention after endorsing Donald Trump’s re-election earlier this year, said protesters harassed him after he left the White House following the president’s acceptance speech.

“My life was threatened. And other lives were threatened,” Jones said in a tweet.. “And when I hear that foolishness from the liberal media that it was mostly peaceful, where in the hell were they when my life was threatened and other lives were threatened?”

A video that the far-right site Breitbart posted doesn’t follow that script.

It shows protesters asking Jones whether he supports Trump and demanding that he say the name of Breonna Taylor, a woman who was killed by police during a no-knock raid earlier this year in Louisville, Kentucky. Although a few people invaded Jones’ personal space, no violence or threats were recorded. Police officers escorted Jones to his hotel. This video posted on Twitter also did not record any threats of violence.

DFCS pulls plug on child abuse registry, saying it didn’t help

The Georgia Division of Family and Children Services has shut down its child abuse registry because officials say the database was making it more difficult to accurately track and punish abuse.

The move followed the General Assembly’s unanimous vote in June to repeal the system that went into place in 2016.

DFCS officials say the database not only duplicated information collected through its SHINES Portal — a statewide, automated child welfare information system — but kept the most egregious abusers off the list until they had gone through the court system.

State Rep. Katie Dempsey, the Rome Republican who sponsored House Bill 993, the legislation that repealed the registry, said it was important for Georgians to know that children still are being protected.

“Federal law requires every state to have our child welfare agencies, for child abuse and neglect, to have those records. That already existing case management system is SHINES,” she said. “This will be a better way to deal with it.”

Getting rid of the system, is expected to save the state about $1 million this fiscal year.

Melissa Carter, the director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University, lobbied for the system’s repeal.

In the worst cases of abuse or neglect, when criminal charges were filed, prosecutors asked that the names not be placed on the registry until after the case had worked its way through the court system, which could take years.

Carter said that essentially nullified the full value of the registry.

“The most serious perpetrators, those who are the small but very serious number of cases, perpetrators of that kind of conduct, weren’t even named on the registry,” she said.

Candidates, endorsements, etc.:

— Democrat Jon Ossoff has won the support of the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club in his race against Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue. Eddie Ehlert, the chapter’s political chairman, applauded what he called Ossoff’s pledge to “build a clean energy economy that works for Georgians.”

— Georgia House Speaker David Ralston has formally endorsed the bid by fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Collins for the U.S. Senate in November’s special election.

— The Rev. Raphael Warnock has gained the backing of Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath in November’s special election for the U.S. Senate.

— Democracy for America, a liberal advocacy group, is backing Democratic state Sen. Nikema Williams in the 5th Congressional District race to replace the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta

— The conservative National Federal of Independent Business has endorsed Republican Rich McCormick in the 7th Congressional District.

— U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently tweeted in support of fellow Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux in the 7th Congressional District contest.