Former Atlanta City Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who twice lost Atlanta mayor’s races by less than 1,000 votes, is aiding a legal attempt to delegitimize Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump in Georgia.
Norwood signed an affidavit, notarized on Nov. 29, that was included in a lawsuit intended to invalidate Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes for President-elect Biden.
The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case Saturday. A former Trump attorney has since taken the case back to the 11th Circuit, and a decision has yet to be made.
The lawsuit is part of nationwide, last-ditch efforts involving multiple challenges alleging voting irregularities. None of those lawsuits have been successful to date.
Norwood’s affidavit did not describe any specific irregularities witnessed in the 2020 election. She outlined her own experiences and what she believed were weaknesses with the matching of signatures surrounding absentee ballot votes.
Norwood, who now chairs The Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods, alleges in the affidavit that her supporters found evidence of voter fraud when she ran for mayor in 2009 against Kasim Reed, and again in 2017 when her opponent was Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
She lost both races by slim margins ― 714 votes in 2009, and 759 votes on election night in 2017.
Norwood’s affidavit was one of several hundred alleging election irregularities in an exhibit from one of the the so-called “Kraken” lawsuits filed by Sidney Powell.
In her affidavit, Norwood mentions the Georgia Secretary of State in 2018 launched an investigation into alleged irregularities in the 2017 election against Bottoms.
“To date, I have not received a report nor any conclusions about what they found — two and one half years later,” she wrote.
A spokeswoman for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in September 2019 that the case was still open. A Raffensperger spokesman did not respond to an AJC question this week about the status of the case.
During the 2017 mayor’s race, Norwood constantly battled being labeled a Republican, a liability in a majority Democratic city.
Norwood insisted that she was an independent, had voted for Hillary Clinton, and condemned racism, bigotry and violence. But when pressed, she declined to denounce Trump himself.
Norwood told the AJC that she signed the affidavit and distributed it widely. She denied having any contact or coordination with the Trump campaign and said she didn’t know how her sworn statement would be used.
“All I was trying to do is make sure that everything was done above board,” she said.
The affidavit was notarized by the same woman who performed the service on dozens of others in Kraken lawsuit exhibit.
In her interview with the AJC, Norwood again dodged questions about Trump, refusing to say if she was a supporter.
“I think it’s irrelevant who I support,” she said.
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