A Georgia judge on Saturday dismissed a Republican lawsuit seeking to block counties from opening election offices Saturday and Sunday to let voters deliver their absentee ballot in person.
The lawsuit targets only Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to 11 percent of the state’s voters. But at least five other highly populated counties that tend to vote Democratic also announced that election offices would open this weekend to allow the manual return of mail-in ballots.
The suit was filed Friday evening and cites a section of Georgia law that says ballot boxes cannot be opened after the end of early voting, which ended Friday. But state law says voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day. Despite this clear wording, attorney Alex Kaufman initially argued during an emergency hearing Saturday that voters were not allowed to hand-deliver absentee ballots that were mailed to them.
Kaufman then argued that voters should be prevented from hand-delivering their ballots. ballot papers between the close of in-person early voting Friday and the start of Election Day Tuesday, although he said it’s OK for ballots to arrive by mail during that time. Georgia election offices have a long history of accepting mail-in ballots over the counter.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer, in an online hearing, repeatedly rejected Kaufman’s arguments before ruling orally against him.
“I find it is not a violation of these two sections of the code for a voter to manually return their absentee ballot,” Farmer said.
Fulton County spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said that shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday, 105 ballots had been received in the four locations.
“All voters returning absentee ballots in person to the Department of Registration and Elections must sign an affidavit stating whether they are returning the ballot for themselves or for an authorized family member, member of their household or dependent,” the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections said. Elections said in a press release Saturday evening.
Republicans have been focused on running elections in Fulton County for years, following President Donald Trump. wrongly blamed Fulton County workers for defrauding him in the 2020 Georgia elections.
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State Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon accused Democratic-controlled counties of “illegally accepting ballots.” The issue quickly gained traction online Saturday among Republican activists, particularly after a Fulton County elections official sent an email to poll workers saying observers would not be allowed to sit at the polls. inside the electoral offices during the delivery of ballot papers.
Fulton County Elections Director Nadine Williams said during the hearing that these were county offices, not polling locations, and so partisan election observers were never allowed to observe these spaces.
But hours later, Williams sent an email clarifying that the process was to be open to the public and that no credentials or badges were required. She noted that members of the independent monitoring team that observes Fulton County’s election processes were also on site and that investigators from the secretary of state’s office may also be present.
