US diplomat Alan Eyre says despite the US-Iran ceasefire announcement, there is no deal until it has been formalised – and likely Israel’s strike on Beirut pushed the US into last minute action.

ATLANTA (AP) — When Georgia lawmakers return to the Capitol this week for a special session, they are expected to try to clean up an election mess of their own making.

The election system used throughout the political battleground state relies on a QR code printed on ballots to tally the votes. Legislators passed a law two years ago barring the use of that barcode for the official vote count beyond July 1 of this year, but no replacement method of tabulating votes was ever implemented.

One of the instructions Republican Gov. Brian Kemp laid out for lawmakers when he called the special session is to “address issues created” by that law. Meanwhile, the secretary of state’s office and the State Election Board have further muddied the waters by issuing conflicting guidance for county election officials about how votes should be cast and counted.

If the issues are not resolved soon, there is likely to be confusion and possibly litigation over the state’s elections after July 1. A special election to fill a U.S. House seat is scheduled for that month.

How did we get here?

Georgia’s current election system was first used statewide during the 2020 primary. After the general election that year, when Republican President Donald Trump narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump and his supporters claimed without evidence that the machines had deleted or switched votes.

Trump’s backers continued to complain about the touchscreen voting machines, with some loyalists espousing wild conspiracy theories. Election integrity advocates also criticized the machines, saying they are vulnerable to hacking and that voters cannot be sure their selections are accurately reflected because people can’t read QR codes.

Republican lawmakers in 2024 tried to address those concerns by passing a law banning barcodes for the “official tabulation count” after July 1, 2026. But in the two years since, neither the secretary of state’s office nor the General Assembly has taken action to comply. Now, the deadline is fast approaching and a major midterm election looms.

Trump singled out those machines, which are used in at least some counties in more than a dozen states, in his first executive order on elections shortly after he took office for his second term in January 2025. That order has been blocked by multiple courts and is not being enforced.

The governor steps in

Last month, Kemp announced a special legislative session, scheduled to start Wednesday, to draw new congressional maps for the 2028 elections and to address the QR code issue.

It’s possible that lawmakers could extend the deadline in the law to allow the QR codes to be used for now and give themselves some breathing room to come up with a new system before elections in 2028. But in the waning hours of the regular legislative session earlier this year, they rejected a proposal that would have done that.

Even if lawmakers agree on a solution, it might be tough to implement before a special election to fill the remainder of the term of U.S. Rep. David Scott, who died in April. The special election is set for July 28, with early voting beginning July 6.

Secretary of state offers guidance to election offices

The secretary of state’s office last week issued guidance to election officials in the six counties included in that congressional district. The office says it’s preliminary and subject to change based on any developments from the special session.

The ballots will be run through the scanners, which will read the QR code to generate the election night vote count. Then, before county certification, electronic images created by the scanners for each ballot will be uploaded to a server, where optical character recognition software will be used to tally the votes using the human-readable text. The results of that second process will be the official tabulation count.

The secretary of state’s guidance expressly says counties must continue to use the current election system, including the touchscreen voting machines, and that there is nothing in the law that authorizes the use of hand-marked paper ballots for in-person voting.

Conflict with the election board

The State Election Board weighed in two days later with conflicting guidance. Board members argued the plan proposed by the secretary of state is not authorized by law.

The board passed a resolution instructing counties on what to do if the special legislative session does not result in an extension of the deadline for using QR codes. The resolution directs counties to use their emergency backup, which calls for hand-marked paper ballots with scanners used to count voters’ selections.

When asked about the conflicting guidance during the election board meeting, Elizabeth Young, a lawyer with the state attorney general’s office, said that while the guidance is not binding, “obviously it would cause confusion for elections superintendents if they are getting differing instructions from two agencies, both of which have some authority over what they’re doing.”

The election board has been controlled by a Trump-aligned majority and is often at odds with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is a frequent Trump target.

Local election officials are in the middle

Henry County in Atlanta’s suburbs is one of the counties where voters will go to the polls for next month’s special election. Axiver Harris, interim elections director, said the county is aware of the conflicting guidance and is awaiting further clarification from the state.

“Given the uncertainty surrounding the guidance currently available, we believe it is wise to wait for further direction to ensure that any decisions made are consistent with state requirements and election administration best practices,” he wrote in an email.

Marcye Scott, who is running in the special election to serve the remainder of her late father’s term, said she is not sure most voters are even aware of the issue and is focusing her attention elsewhere.

“My goal is to get people to the polls, get my people to the polls and get them to vote for me,” she said.

But Carlos Moore, another of the six candidates running in the special election, said he is worried about legal challenges if a new method of vote-counting is implemented without enough time. He hopes lawmakers extend the deadline to allow the use of the QR codes for now.

“I would ask that legislators do the right thing, leave well enough alone for the special election,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s almost certain there will be challenges in court.”

This is part six of a series examining the challenges confronting the NATO alliance.

Germany is pledging to become a more powerful military force inside NATO, with Berlin’s ambassador to Washington telling Fox News Digital that the country is ready to assume greater responsibility for European security after decades in which the United States carried much of the alliance’s military burden.

“Germany is stepping up — we heard the call!” German Ambassador to the United States Jens Hanefeld told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said Germany’s armed forces should become the strongest conventional army in Europe, a goal Hanefeld said is now backed by Berlin’s new military strategy.

UK, GERMAN DEFENSE OFFICIALS DEFEND MILITARY BUILDUP UNDER RUSSIAN THREATS

“Russia’s illegal war of aggression has shaken old certainties in Europe and Germany as the international rules we have relied on are being challenged,” Hanefeld said. “This changes the strategic environment we operate in.”

“Today, Germany is Ukraine’s largest supporter,” Hanefeld said in written answers. “Germany’s decision to become Europe’s strongest conventional army, well anchored in the NATO alliance, is an ongoing commitment.”

Germany’s historic military shift

The shift marks a historic turn for a country whose postwar military identity was built around restraint. 

After World War II, West Germany was allowed to rearm only within a Western alliance framework, joining NATO in 1955 and building the Bundeswehr as a force embedded in collective defense rather than independent German power. For decades after reunification, Germany relied heavily on the U.S. security umbrella and often lagged behind NATO spending targets, feeding repeated American complaints that Europe’s largest economy was not pulling its weight.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 forced Berlin to begin rethinking that posture. Then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the shift a “Zeitenwende,” or turning point. Merz is now seeking to turn that phrase into a long-term military buildup.

In Germany, Hanefeld said, the changes underway are often described as a “Zeitenwende,” but he acknowledged that the transformation does not come easily given the country’s history.

GERMAN DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS MILITARY DRAFT COULD RETURN IF VOLUNTEER NUMBERS FALL SHORT

Trump–Merz tensions complicate NATO politics

The effort is unfolding against a backdrop of public friction between President Donald Trump and Merz, a dispute that a U.S. defense expert warned could complicate critical decisions on deterring Russia.

The tension escalated after Merz criticized Washington’s handling of the Iran war, saying the United States was being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership in negotiations and questioning the Trump administration’s exit strategy. Trump fired back by accusing Merz of being soft on Iran’s nuclear program, even though Merz has said Iran must not obtain a nuclear weapon.

The dispute quickly spilled into NATO politics. Trump later threatened to review possible U.S. troop reductions in Germany and said Merz should spend more time ending the war in Ukraine and “fixing his broken country” than commenting on Iran.

Then Merz added another irritant. Speaking to a young audience in Germany, he said he would not advise his children to live, study or work in the United States “today,” citing America’s changing social climate, while also saying he remained “a great admirer of America,” but “My admiration isn’t growing at the moment.”

GERMANY’S MERZ TO ‘ADAPT’ TO TRUMP DURING HIGH-STAKES MEETING ON TARIFFS, DEFENSE

Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former U.S. European Command official, told Fox News Digital that Merz was wrong to speak that way about Trump at a moment when Germany needs Washington’s support. 

“Talking trash about the president at a meeting with school kids in Germany is not professional diplomacy, and especially a president who is well-known to be prickly as President Trump,” Montgomery said. “Germany is not the big country in this relationship, the United States is, and Merz needed to show more discipline as a national leader.” 

Montgomery said those tensions risk affecting hard security decisions, including long-range strike capabilities in Germany.

He criticized recent U.S. moves to delay or potentially cancel a rotational deployment of long-range strike systems to Germany, which he said would have included Tomahawk, SM-6 or Precision Strike Missile capabilities. Reuters reported in May that Germany’s defense ministry said there had been no “definitive cancellation” of the deployment.

“Both of these are bad decisions being made by our Department of Defense,” Montgomery said. “These are weapons systems that are incredibly important to deterring Russia.”

He said the goal is not to fight Russia in Poland, the Baltics or the Suwałki Gap, but to prevent Moscow from attacking in the first place.

“And those long-range strike weapons are a big part of that. And I’m very disappointed in our Department of Defense,” Montgomery said.

A source with knowledge of the matter said that despite briefings about possible decreases in U.S. involvement, the U.S.–Germany defense relationship remains strong and cooperation remains close.

‘PUTIN IS PUSHING THE LIMITS’: EASTERN ALLIES WARN TRUMP NOT TO PULL US TROOPS

Europe’s future defense industrial base

“Germany developing a large, impressive defense industrial base is good for NATO, it’s good for Western security, and it’s even good for our primes,” Montgomery said, arguing that Germany, not Poland, France or the United Kingdom, is most likely to become the “beating heart” of Europe’s future defense industrial base.

Germany has long been central to the U.S. military presence in Europe. Hanefeld pointed to Ramstein Air Base, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the training area in Grafenwöhr as examples of Germany’s continuing importance to American power projection and NATO deterrence.

“These facilities serve U.S. national security interests and U.S. military personnel and further NATO’s ability to deter and defend,” he said. “I am confident: NATO will remain transatlantic at its core, but will become more European over the next decade.”

At the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, allies agreed to invest 5% of GDP annually in defense and defense-related spending by 2035, including core military spending and broader security investments. Merz said at the time that the decision was meant to safeguard “freedom, security and prosperity,” according to the German government.

Hanefeld said Germany is already moving to meet that standard, saying Berlin will increase defense spending to 5% of GDP “well before” 2035 and recruit almost 100,000 new active-duty soldiers into the Bundeswehr.

He also pushed back against U.S. critics who argue that Germany and other European allies are still not carrying their fair share of the defense burden. Hanefeld said Germany has signed more than 380 contracts worth more than $33 billion with U.S. defense companies to procure and manufacture fighter jets, transport helicopters, air defense systems and ammunition.

“It’s a down payment on the transatlantic future and on our political commitment to shift the burden for deterrence and defense to Europe,” Hanefeld said.

TRUMP PUSHED NATO TO SPEND BIG — NOW COMES THE HARDER QUESTION: CAN EUROPE ACTUALLY FIGHT?

Defending NATO’s eastern flank

One of Germany’s most visible commitments is its permanent brigade in Lithuania, expected to include around 5,000 German military and civilian personnel. The Bundeswehr says the force is intended to become fully operational for the defense of NATO’s eastern flank in the Baltic region within three years.

Hanefeld called the brigade one of Germany’s “signature efforts” to reassure Baltic allies that NATO “will defend every inch of allied territory.”

For Germany, the change is not only about money. It is a political and cultural break with decades of caution about military power. For the United States, it is also a test of whether the ally long criticized by Trump and other U.S. leaders for underspending can now become the European backbone Washington has demanded.

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Hanefeld said that is exactly where Berlin intends to go.

“NATO will remain transatlantic at its core,” he said, “but will become more European over the next decade.”