Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to reinstate six charges in the state’s election subversion case against Donald Trump.

Earlier this year, the judge in the case ruled that six counts, including three specifically against Trump, weren’t detailed enough about the alleged crimes. The counts in question have to do with alleged efforts to appoint fake electors in Georgia, after Trump lost the state in the 2020 election.

In a new filing submitted Tuesday, Willis asked to have that ruling reversed.

“The indictment more than sufficiently placed Cross-Appellees on notice of the conduct at issue and allowed them to prepare an intelligent defense to the charges,” the new filing read.

Lawyers for Trump say the judge’s initial decision to disqualify the counts was unambiguous.

“The brief filed by DA Fani Willis is simply incorrect on the law,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement obtained by Scripps News. “The trial court’s dismissal order properly decided that the State failed to sufficiently plead the allegations in the dismissed counts under Georgia law.”

RELATED STORY | Georgia judge rules on ballot counting and vote certification as early voting begins

The filing comes as Georgia begins early voting for the 2024 presidential election. According to data provided by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, more than 310,000 voters voted in person in Georgia on Tuesday.

This round of voting is seeing its own unique legal developments: a judge ruled on Tuesday that election officials are required to certify the state’s votes by 5p.m. on the Tuesday following the election. He also blocked a rule passed earlier this year that required counties to hand-count all ballots, saying such a change would be “too much, too late” ahead of the 2024 election.

On a four-game win streak, No. 12 Notre Dame hits the road against Georgia Tech looking to stay in the playoff race in college football’s Week 8 action on Saturday. Let’s take a look at the latest prediction for the game from an expert football model that picks winners.

Notre Dame has recovered nicely from its loss to Northern Illinois, winning four straight games and playing the nation’s 8th-ranked scoring defense, although the team just lost star cornerback Benjamin Morrison for the season with a hip injury.

Georgia Tech is on a two-game win streak after losing 2 of its last 3 and sits at 5-2 overall behind a rushing attack that ranks 25th in FBS with over 204 yards per game on average.

Looking ahead to this week’s matchup, let’s check out the latest college football predictions from the Football Power Index computer prediction model.

The model simulates every NCAA college football game 20,000 times and uses key analytics from both teams and picks winners based on a projected scoring margin per game.

So far, the prediction models are siding strongly with the Fighting Irish in this road game.

Notre Dame is projected to win the game outright in the majority 83.5 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations for the matchup.

That leaves Georgia Tech as the expected winner in the remaining 16.5 percent of sims.

In total, Notre Dame came out ahead in 16,700 of the index’s simulations of the game, while Georgia Tech emerged as the winner in the other 3,300 predictions.

The index forecasts a double-digit win for the Irish over the Yellow Jackets on the scoreboard.

Notre Dame is projected to be 14.6 points better than Georgia Tech on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.

If so, that would be enough for the Irish to cover the spread.

That’s because Notre Dame is an 11 point favorite against Georgia Tech, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 49.5 points for the game.

And it set the moneyline odds for Notre Dame at -425 and for Georgia Tech at +340 to win outright.

A plurality of bettors expect the Yellow Jackets will make this a game against the Irish, according to the latest spread consensus picks.

Georgia Tech is getting 56 percent of bets to either win in an upset or to keep the game within the line.

Notre Dame is getting the other 44 percent of wagers to win the game and cover the spread.

Notre Dame has a 57.5 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff and will win 10 games this season, according to the FPI’s metrics.

That model gives Georgia Tech a win total prediction of 6.8 games and a 0.7 percent chance at the 12-team playoff.

Football Power Index (FPI) college football rankings and computer prediction model are a measure of team strength that predicts a team’s future performance. 

Rankings and scores predictions are based on 20,000 simulations of a team’s season and games, using a combination of key analytics, including scores to date, quality of opponents, team talent, recruiting, and a team’s schedule.

Teams are ranked not in order of talent like in other rankings, but by a projected point margin per game against an average team on a neutral field.

First-place votes in parentheses

1. Texas (56)
2. Oregon (6)
3. Penn State
4. Ohio State
5. Georgia
6. Miami
7. Alabama
8. LSU
9. Iowa State
10. Clemson
11. Tennessee
12. Notre Dame
13. BYU
14. Texas A&M
15. Boise State
16. Indiana
17. Kansas State
18. Ole Miss
19. Missouri
20. Pittsburgh
21. SMU
22. Illinois
23. Army
24. Michigan
25. Navy

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, please call 1-800-GAMBLER.

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More college football from SI: Top 25 Rankings | Schedule | Teams

Follow College Football HQ: Bookmark | Rankings | Picks

The first day of early voting in Georgia crushed the previous record for in-person turnout, with more than 300,000 people casting a ballot Tuesday.

The previous record was 136,000 votes on the first day of advanced voting in 2020, according to Georgia Secretary of State officials.

In polling places across vote-rich metro Atlanta, backers of both political parties showed up in droves to back their favorite candidates on a busy first day of the end of the 2024 election.

U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, who is also chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said late Monday afternoon that she was heartened by the turnout.

“We have shocked the nation in Georgia before with historic voter turnout in 2020 and now we are even surpassing that,” the Atlanta Democrat said. “I am confident that voters are choosing their freedom when they vote, but I also understand that there’s a lot more days of early voting to go, and so we have to keep this momentum going.”

The first day of early voting coincided with a visit from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who did an all-women town hall in Cumming that will air Wednesday on Fox News and a late-night rally in Cobb County.

“I tell you what, I’m hearing very good things now. It hasn’t been going on too long, but we’re seeing numbers. They’re saying, ‘Wow, those are big numbers,’” Trump told rally-goers Tuesday.

Cherokee County

But there were also signs of energy among right-leaning voters.

When the polls at Rose Creek Public Library in Woodstock opened up at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, more than 75 people were already in a line stretching around the building and looping up in a closed-off section of the parking lot.

The library parking lot quickly filled up beyond capacity, and some parked their vehicles along the curb. Still, the crowd grew as people were dropped off out front or walked over from nearby lots.

Some of the voters were bundled up against the chilly weather, but the mood was generally jolly, with some clapping and cheering when poll workers officially opened the doors.

Sharon Krecl of Canton was one of the first to walk out the doors, along with a friend who did not want her name published.

Most of Tuesday’s early risers said they are constant early voters because it is more convenient for them than waiting until Election Day.

“We’ve got other things to do,” Krecl said. “We don’t want to be standing in line. We figure it’s going to be a very busy election year.”

Woodstock retiree James Tanner said he wanted to bank his vote for Donald Trump in case he buys the proverbial farm before Nov. 5.

“Well I wanted to get it over with. I might die before Election Day, I wanted to make sure I get counted,” he said with a laugh.

Tanner stepped out of the library wearing a cap naming him as a Purple Heart recipient.

“I’m like Trump, I took a bullet for this country,” he said.

Tanner was far from the sole Trump voter who lined up early in Woodstock Tuesday. More than two-thirds of the county supported the former president against Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.

The local Democratic Party is hoping to make the district, sandwiched between the more liberal north Atlanta suburbs and conservative rural north Georgia, a little bluer, announcing visits from big names like Sen. Jon Ossoff and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, but most of Tuesday’s early voters said they want Trump back in office.

“He’s going to save America,” Tanner said. “America’s going down the hole, quick. Democrats, I don’t know what they got on their mind, but it ain’t America. We need somebody to take America back.”

“I just think he’s strong,” said Gail Kane of Woodstock. “I think he’s strong for our country, for somebody to go through what he’s going through and still keep running to be able to take care of our country, I mean, you can’t ask for better than that.”

Most of the voters listed border security, crime and the economy as their top concerns.

“He’s a businessman, so he’s dealt with other countries in his business and everything,” said Woodstock retiree George McCutchen. “So he knows what’s going on. It’s about running the country like a business. That’s the biggest thing.”

Some of the voters also expressed concern that the election might not be completely free or fair.

“We’re hoping, God willing,” Kane said. “I think the last election was a little bit, maybe, off. We’ll never know 100% for sure.”

“I think it’s more fair, too, when Election Day is Election Day,” she added. “Not election week or  election couple days. Get it all done like we used to back in the old days. One day, count your votes the next day, whatever.”

Trump continues to allege malfeasance in the 2020 election, but his efforts to overturn the results have failed in multiple courts. In the past, the former president has expressed skepticism with early and absentee voting, implying that those votes are easier to falsify, but he has since moderated that stance and called on supporters to vote any way they can.

In a Tuesday morning press conference at the state Capitol, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger sought to quash worries about election security, touting measures including maintaining accurate voter lists by cooperating with other states, verifying that only U.S. citizens are able to vote and a 100% audit of all races.

“We have the cleanest, most accurate voter list in the entire country,” he said.

Atlanta

Trump and his supporters are hoping places like Cherokee continue to see big crowds at polling places, while Harris voters hope to see strong turnout in Atlanta and some of its more left-leaning suburbs.

Poll workers in Atlanta reported steady crowds Tuesday, including at the Joan P. Garner Library at Ponce De Leon, where Pamela Matthews, a retired government contractor, cast her ballot for Harris.

Matthews said she thinks Harris’ policies would be better for the middle class economically, and that she prefers the vice president’s position on abortion. But she said she worries Harris’ connection with her boss, President Joe Biden, could harm her chances in Georgia.

“It’s hard for her because of the split between her and Biden, and things that she probably would do different from Biden, she’s really not talking a lot about it because she’s still serving underneath him,” she said. “So that’s a disadvantage for her to me. But hopefully, I mean, it’s so close now that she’s going to have to separate herself from him and really talk about the things that she would do differently.”

Matthews said she hopes to see Harris separate herself from Biden on the economy, and especially the war in Gaza.

“So many people are losing their lives, so I hope that she will take a stance against that and speak up because she would probably do, I think, things a little bit different, but she really doesn’t say much because of the position that she’s still in,” she added.

Democrats’ chances at retaining the White House appeared to leap when Biden dropped out and Harris became the nominee, but Leah Foster of DeKalb County said Biden’s forced departure left a bad taste in her mouth.

Foster voted in DeKalb County Tuesday morning after a wait of just under an hour.

While she said she’s not happy about how she feels Biden was treated, she appreciates him setting up his vice president to be the nominee and was pleased to vote for her.

“I’m voting for someone who doesn’t have the baggage,” she said. “And I’m not talking about the 34 convictions. I’m not talking about the alleged rape. I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about the inability to put America first, the inability to put the country first.”

Foster said she thinks Trump is too self-centered to serve another term and would harm the nation’s reputation abroad.

“I’m not voting for the lesser of two evils. I hear people say that, but I don’t view her as evil,” she said. “I view her as this is her time. This is America’s time. This is America’s time to say once again on the world stage who we are. Biden has brought back a lot of credibility to America on the world stage, and I just do not think that Trump would continue that. I think that we would fall back with him at the helm in that regard.”

Frankie Brown said he voted for a full Democratic ticket. He said on election night he’ll be watching the House and Senate results as closely as the presidential race.

“Republicans aren’t capable and aren’t ready to do anything but just flex their muscle and stuff, but I think we can get something done with the Democratic party,” he said. “We’ve got plans, we’ve got voting power, all we’ve got to do is make sure we get the Senate, that’s going to be a little worse, but I’m positive.”

Polls suggest a slim Republican majority could be the most likely outcome in the Senate, while control of the House is more difficult to predict. Brown said he hopes a Democratic trifecta will allow the party to take action in his most important issues, abortion and gun control.

Britany Hellyar-Luna, who voted in East Point in south Fulton County, showed up on the first day of early voting to avoid the lines. Also, she said there was no point waiting when she already knew how she planned to vote.

“As a same-sex couple, we want to protect our rights too,” she said as she left East Point First Mallalieu United Methodist Church, which is an early voting location. “That was not a hard thing to vote Kamala versus Trump.”

Octavis Smith voted at the same East Point location on the first day but he said he mostly voted early just to get it over with so people would stop hassling him about the election.

Disillusioned by the negative ads and what he sees as self-serving politicians, the Democrat-leaning voter said he was not particularly enthusiastic about any candidate but ultimately backed Harris because he said he wants to see what she would do with the opportunity to potentially become the country’s first woman president.

“I really do want to see what she is going to do. I mean, I already saw what Trump is going to do,” he said.