Republicans continue to challenge Fulton County elections officials in court as Tuesday’s momentous presidential election looms.
On Saturday, a Georgia judge rejected a GOP lawsuit trying to block Fulton and other counties from opening election offices on Saturday and Sunday to let voters hand in their mail ballots in person.
Meanwhile, a Republican county election board member has filed another lawsuit seeking documents she says she needs to certify the results of Tuesday’s election.
The scrutiny underscores the county’s importance in a tight race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. A Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta, Fulton is Georgia’s most populous county.
Fulton and at least five other Georgia counties recently announced that election offices would open over the weekend to allow hand return of absentee ballots.
The lawsuit, filed late Friday, named only Fulton County. It cited a section of Georgia law that says ballot drop boxes cannot be open past the end of advance voting, which ended Friday. But state law also says voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until the close of polls at 7 p.m. on Election Day. Despite that wording, lawyer Alex Kaufman initially claimed in an emergency hearing Saturday that voters aren’t allowed to hand-deliver absentee ballots that were mailed to them.
Kaufman then argued that voters should be blocked from hand-delivering their ballots between the close of early in-person voting on Friday and the beginning of Election Day on Tuesday, even though he said it was fine for ballots to arrive by mail during that period. It has long been the practice for Georgia election offices to accept mail ballots over the counter.
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer, in an online hearing, repeatedly rejected Kaufman’s arguments before orally ruling against him.
“I find that it is not a violation of those two code sections for a voter to hand-return their absentee ballots,” Farmer said.
A disagreement also erupted over whether observers could sit inside Fulton election offices as ballots were turned in. County officials initially said no but then reversed that decision.
Meanwhile, Fulton County election board member Julie Adams filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing county election officials have denied her documents in violation of a recent judge’s order. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Adams is entitled to prompt review of information not protected from disclosure by law.
The new lawsuit is the latest skirmish in a battle over the duties of local election board members in Georgia. Some Republicans — including Adams — have said they have the discretion not to certify elections if they have reason to question the results.
Democrats, voting rights groups, a Fulton County judge and others say local board members are required to certify results and that their job is merely to tally the results and leave fraud investigations to law enforcement and the courts. They fear the push for discretionary certification is part of an effort to overturn the results if former President Donald Trump loses in Georgia this year.
Adams has been at the center of the debate. She voted not to certify the results of the May primary election, saying she had not received the documents needed to ensure the results are accurate.
On Wednesday the Fulton election board approved a list of documents that members will review before certifying the results of next week’s election. It’s the same list the board used for other elections this year.
But Adams wanted more — including daily lists of complaints from election workers, observers and voters. She also wanted electronic copies of all documents. The board denied her request, citing security concerns about electronic records and the burden on staff of producing daily complaint reports.
A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found at least 19 local board members across the state have voted not to certify elections since 2020.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
