Republicans on Sunday broadened their attack on counties accepting absentee ballots over the weekend, even though a judge has ruled the practice is perfectly legal.
Fulton and other Georgia counties opened government offices Saturday and Sunday to accept absentee ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election — a practice authorized by Georgia law. On Saturday, Fulton Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer rejected a GOP lawsuit that sought to prevent the practice.
But Republicans filed a second lawsuit Sunday against seven counties seeking to invalidate the practice. And Republicans kept up a steady stream of attacks on social media and elsewhere over the weekend, suggesting something illegal was afoot.
In comments Sunday, state Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, implied the decision to accept ballots over the weekend was an improper extension of early in-person voting, which ended Friday.
“I think the 19 days of early voting we had went off without a problem,” Beach said at the North Fulton Service Center in Sandy Springs, where the county accepted ballots. “The voters were starting to gain confidence back in the process. Now what this has done, these shenanigans have instilled doubt in the credibility in the election process.”
Max Flugrath, spokesman for the liberal voting rights group Fair Fight, said supporters of Republican Donald Trump are spreading false claims and disinformation “with the goal of undermining confidence in our election.”
“The Trump ally plan is clear: spread false claims about election fraud, use those false claims to anger their followers and then encourage them to go cause chaos at election office(s),” Flugrath said. “Elections are decided by voters making a choice, not election deniers using false claims to sow chaos — their plan will fail.”
State law allows absentee ballots to be returned to county election offices by mail or in person until 7 p.m. Tuesday. And it allows local election boards to establish other locations to accept absentee ballots, including government buildings or other buildings used as Election Day polling places.
Because of problems with the U.S. Postal Service, Fulton County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt said people who waited until the Oct. 25 deadline to request an absentee ballot cannot expect their ballots to be delivered on time. She said opening county offices to accept them this weekend makes it convenient for people who work and may not be able to deliver their ballots in person Monday or Tuesday.
Nonetheless, Fulton County’s decision led county and state Republican officials to file a lawsuit late Friday. At a hearing early Saturday, they argued voters cannot return their ballots in person between the close of early in-person voting Friday and Election Day.
Citing state law, Judge Farmer rejected that argument and the Republican request for an injunction against the practice. But on Sunday, the Republican National Committee and the Georgia GOP filed another lawsuit in federal court in Savannah. They sought to block Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, Athens-Clarke, Clayton and Chatham counties from accepting absentee ballots.
The latest lawsuit targets Democratic-leaning counties but not Republican-leaning counties — such as Walton — that also opened offices this weekend to allow voters to drop off ballots.
On Saturday, Fulton initially denied Republicans a chance to observe the locations accepting absentee ballots. Corbitt said the county clarified the rules and admitted them by midmorning.
On Sunday, Republican, Democratic and other observers watched voters drop off ballots at Fulton’s Sandy Springs office.
Bill Baskett, 69, of Roswell was one of the public observers who came to monitor the process because of his concerns of voter fraud.
“I’m checking to see if anyone brings in a pile of absentee ballots, because I heard they stuffed absentee ballot boxes with counterfeit ballots last time,” he said. He added that he thinks voters should not be allowed to return mail ballots after the end of early voting.
Some observers apparently snapped photos of voters going in to drop of their ballots.
“There was this lady with six or seven ballots,” Irina Muskovitz, a Republican poll watcher, said, showing The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a photo she took of multiple ballots in a voter’s hand.
Under Georgia law, people can deliver ballots for family members. Corbitt said those who deliver ballots in person are required to complete an affidavit stating they are delivering ballots for themselves or family members allowed under the law.
Beach spent time filming videos for social media at the Sandy Springs office over the weekend. Four years ago he was one of several legislators who aided Trump’s effort to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.
On Sunday, Beach brushed off the Fulton judge’s ruling that state law allows accepting ballots over the weekend.
“The spirit of the law is we have 19 days of early voting, weekend voting and election voting,” he said. “Everything should’ve stopped on Friday.”
Flugrath, the Fair Fight spokesman, saw it differently.
“False claims are all the MAGA Republican Party has — they have no plans to improve people’s lives, so they resort to disinformation with the goal of undermining confidence in our elections.”
