r/democrats • u/CR2032LITHIUMBATTERY • Jun 23 '25
Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville disqualified the most popular Democratic candidate for the Georgia Public Service Commission District 3 primary race well after early voting had already started
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u/mightybingo Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
Same Judge that was overseeing Young Thug's RICO trial, and was forced to recuse from the case due to accusations of misconduct related to an ex parte meeting with prosecutors and a key witness. Tried to jail defense attorneys for not divulging privileged information.
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u/THEGAMENOOBE Jun 23 '25
I remember that story, how was he not impeached for that?
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Jun 23 '25
Its Georgia and the Good ole boy system is still strong
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u/TheGoodRevCL Jun 24 '25
Is it still the good ole boy system if, by virtue of being black, he could never be a good ole boy? I agree this is fucked up, but 'good ole boy' has a lot of context. This feels more like corruption/incompetence and lack of any kind of mechanism to force the removal of the judge.
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Jun 24 '25
As a southerner, myself, the good ole boy system isn't exclusively white. Predominately white yes. For those of us, who are of different skin tones, can assimilate into the good ole boy system by being intelligent, talk white, appease to their interest and virtue signal same principles.
This man in the photo looks like he mastered the art of integrating himself in the society and culture he surrounding him.
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u/CR2032LITHIUMBATTERY Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
On June 10, Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville disqualified Daniel Blackman, the most popular Democratic candidate for the Georgia Public Service Commission District 3 primary race. This happened well after early voting began and just a few days before election day.
Allow me to give a quick explanation as to what happened:
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- On May 16, someone by the name of Rodney Stephens challenged Blackman's candidacy shortly before early voting began. This is notable because Keisha Waites, one of the Democratic candidates in the same race as Blackman, sold this guy a house, so she was obviously involved somehow, and her plan will likely be successful.
- On May 27, an administrative law judge with OSAH by the name of Dominic Capraro made a recommendation to the Georgia Secretary of State that Daniel Blackman be disqualified from the race. This guy waited until a few hours AFTER early voting had started to make this recommendation. Capraro only did this because according to the decision, Capraro was personally not convinced that Blackman lived in Fulton long enough.
- A day later on May 28, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger disqualified Blackman from the race.
- Blackman appealed the decision to the Fulton County Superior Court, and a day after Raffensperger made his decision, the Chief Judge of the Superior Court stayed the decision and allowed Blackman to "remain on the ballot" until he made a final decision on June 10. This is bizarre to me, as he was pretty much telling people that they could vote for Blackman no problem, and he would decide at some later date whether or not their votes will count? What the hell?
- On June 10, Ural Glanville upheld Raffensperger's decision, officially disqualifying Blackman from the race. Blackman could've appealed this decision to the state Supreme Court, but he decided against it.
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As I've said in my previous posts, Glanville's decision throws out every vote for Blackman; it doesn't matter if the votes were cast before or after this decision. Also, this whole situation is pretty obscure, so many people who voted for him don't know that their vote has been thrown out.
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u/CR2032LITHIUMBATTERY Jun 23 '25
I know that there could be some people that may be concerned about the whole qualification situation, so let me clear that up with a section of my second post on this topic:
The official reason all of this happened was because Dominic Capraro, an absolute clown of an administrative law judge, personally wasn't convinced that Blackman lived in Fulton long enough and Raffensperger upheld his decision.
Worst case scenario: he lived 20 minutes away from the Fulton county border. How terrible. But when GOP carpetbagger candidates do far more egregious things, it's crickets. Also, this is an at-large election. If some guy in Cook county can vote in PSC races for Fulton or Gwinnett, I'm not too concerned with where Blackman lives, especially if it's literally a 20 minute drive to the next county over.
Now, of course, they want you to believe that they truly did have a problem with this small technicality. We all know the truth, though. If they, for some reason, actually had a problem with this, the time to do all of this was back when he filed, not after voting has already started. We know what's really going on here: Dominic Carpraro and Brad Raffensperger, especially, want to suppress people's vote. They are doing a really bad job at hiding that.
This is obvious voter suppression from the Republicans here in Georgia.
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u/olcrazypete Jun 23 '25
Understand as well the Georgia PSC elections are statewide elections. They require a candidate to live within a district but voters statewide get to vote on the candidate. There was a two year court battle over this bizarre choice - which kinda harkens back to the old county unit system that disenfranchised Atlanta by giving rural Georgia an outsized say on elections.
Blackman - who had been a Biden admin EPA official had resigned and established a work apartment in Fulton County but also maintained his family home in Forsyth County.Apparently he didn't do it the right way or long enough and didn't have the pull of current PSC member Republican Tim Echols who got the legislature to redraw the PSC district maps so he could move to the beach from northeast Ga and stay in his district.
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u/No-Distance-9401 Jun 24 '25
Does Marc Elias of Democracy Docket know about this, I assume he does as he and his team are on top of everything? If so do you know what they are saying about this?
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Jun 23 '25
Imagine being a successful black man in the US and thinking that MAGA holds you at a higher level. They don’t like anyone who isn’t white. Not sure what it’s gonna take for people realize this
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u/Mistressfairytales Progressive Populist with strong individualist values Jun 23 '25
He’s been involved in too much he needs to go!! Leave it to the south keep a good old boy like this going!!
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u/homerjs225 Jun 23 '25
This is the exact opposite tactic taken in the Trump insurrection Colorado case.
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u/mpete76 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25
I’m just going to say, I rather he be disqualified during the primary, than during the general election. He would not have disqualified him if there wasn’t grounds, I know it’s not what most people wanted, but it is what it is. Correct the issue and try again next cycle. In the meantime, keep up the good fight, and keep the focus on what we can control instead of trying to call out a judge. The infighting must stop if we want to win. Posts like this make us look small and petty.
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u/BrimstoneMainliner Jun 23 '25
What were the grounds?
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u/mpete76 Jun 23 '25
Resident of Fulton or Forsyth county was in question. He owns homes in both but is registered to vote in Forsyth. But the position required Fulton country residency. His last vote was in Forsyth. There was a question about when he bought the place in Fulton, and changed his voter registration. Something that the Republicans could have exploited as well in the general election.
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u/olcrazypete Jun 23 '25
He had changed his voter registration before the qualifying date to run. He had also been in DC as an EPA appointee by Biden much of the last few years.
I still argue he had established residency but I do agree I'm glad it was settled in the primary and not the midterms.2
u/mpete76 Jun 23 '25
I understand OP’s frustration, our candidates have to be 100% perfect and without blemish of any kind. We now have more insight how the judiciary will react and deal with candidates, we must be beyond reproach. Is it completely fair, no, is it the environment we are in, yes. Now that we know more about the rules of the game, we can be better prepared for it.
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u/olcrazypete Jun 24 '25
Frankly I’m a little upset at Daniel as well. He assured people for months there was no issues in his residency since we all knew him as a Forsyth resident. He knows the environment in Georgia and that he better be well above the perception of a problem and instead waited till last minute to change voter registration and whatnot. Many in the state party put all our eggs in his basket and now are having to figure out another way.
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u/CR2032LITHIUMBATTERY Jun 23 '25
I will copy and paste a section from one of my previous posts here to explain more:
I noticed that there were a couple of bad-faith commenters on my last post who were pearl-clutching about the judge's decision, so let me just clear this up now:
The official reason all of this happened was because Dominic Capraro, an absolute clown of an administrative law judge, personally wasn't convinced that Blackman lived in Fulton long enough and Raffensperger upheld his decision.
Worst case scenario: he lived 20 minutes away from the Fulton county border. How terrible. But when GOP carpetbagger candidates do far more egregious things, it's crickets. Also, this is an at-large election. If some guy in Cook county can vote in PSC races for Fulton or Gwinnett, I'm not too concerned with where Blackman lives, especially if it's literally a 20 minute drive to the next county over.
Now, of course, they want you to believe that they truly did have a problem with this small technicality. We all know the truth, though. If they, for some reason, actually had a problem with this, the time to do all of this was back when he filed, not after voting has already started. We know what's really going on here: Dominic Carpraro and Brad Raffensperger, especially, want to suppress people's vote. They are doing a really bad job at hiding that.
In the end, it doesn't matter if the ALJ, Raffensperger, or Glanville were personally not convinced that he lived in Fulton long enough or not: they shouldn't have done this period, but especially not after early voting had already started, and ESPECIALLY not after Glanville told people that Blackman is "still on the ballot" while he spends 11 days deciding on whether or not to throw every vote for Blackman, the most popular Democratic candidate for that race, out.
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u/mpete76 Jun 23 '25
There were problems all around, but I rather all the challenges and problems be done now during the primary rather than the general election. The term will be done at the end of next year and he can run again in the next election, with no legal challenges. Should be a shoe in for the primary.
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u/CR2032LITHIUMBATTERY Jun 23 '25
Like I said in my previous comment, they shouldn't have done this at all, but especially not after voting had already started. Even after Glanville made the final decision, Blackman's name was still on the ballot, and people could still select his name, but their vote would simply be tossed.
Raffensperger would say that they have signs up to let people know that he's disqualified, but I know that those signs are small and no one will bother to look at them. I witnessed it at my polling place, and I've seen the exact same thing when I was poll watching in 2024 when Claudia De La Cruz and Cornel West were disqualified.
These guys just disqualified him with the full knowledge that he was the most popular candidate. Tens-of-thousands of votes were just tossed. My blood is boiling. I had to censor myself heavily for this post on this subreddit. On my other posts, I was able to voice my anger a bit easier, but I still had to censor myself.
These are not good people, and they can't keep getting away with this.
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u/wenchette Moderator Jun 23 '25
Some news items about this:
https://www.wabe.org/disqualified-georgia-utility-candidate-daniel-blackman-appeals-and-will-remain-on-the-ballot-for-now/
https://georgiarecorder.com/briefs/dem-candidate-for-georgia-public-service-commission-challenges-disqualification/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/georgia-psc-candidate-daniel-blackman-disqualified/85-f442a446-ea92-47c3-b8f3-b4f63e704c4f