Georgia: Fewer postelection disputes than 2020 despite early legal blitz

ATLANTA — With President-elect Donald Trump’s safe margin of victory earlier this month, Georgia avoided a wave of postelection litigation that the state experienced four years ago, but the lawsuits filed in the run-up to Election Day continue.

Partisans, county election boards and advocacy groups filed more than 35 lawsuits challenging Georgia laws, last-minute rule changes and other election-related matters from May to before vote tabulation. But soon after Trump secured another four years in the White House, chatter of election security began to fade.

“What happened postelection in 2024 lays bare that the entire last four years of election disinformation has been about one thing and one thing only,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, an organization that works with election officials to build voter confidence. “That was Donald Trump losing, because it all went away when Donald Trump won.”

For months leading up to the November election, a Trump-aligned trio on the State Election Board approved a series of rules, including requirements to hand count ballots on election night and allowing for a “reasonable inquiry” before certification. Those changes and several others were tossed out by Fulton Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox. Jr. for this year’s election after Eternal Vigilance Action, a conservative nonprofit led by former Republican state Rep. Scot Turner, filed a suit to stop them.

Cox said the board overstepped its authority as a rulemaking body, but the Republican National Committee and Georgia Republican Party appealed his decision and the Georgia Supreme Court has yet to rule.

Other pending legal battles focus on processes for purging suspected ineligible people from voter rolls.

Conservative activists have filed lawsuits accusing the secretary of state and two metro Atlanta counties — DeKalb and Gwinnett — of failing to police voter rolls. Activists in a similar Fulton case withdrew their lawsuit after a judge said the county was following state law.

Civil rights organizations filed lawsuits challenging new state laws that give activists greater opportunity to challenge potentially legitimate voters from rolls.

Last week, election boards in counties with Republican members who have previously refused to certify election results unanimously certified this year’s results.

Some board members pointed to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s ruling last month that certification is a mandatory step. In his ruling, McBurney rejected claims from Fulton County election board member Julie Adams, who refused to certify May’s primary election. He said concerns over election fraud or abuse should be handled through formal election challenges in court.

Adams appealed that ruling and filed an additional lawsuit seeking access to more election documents than the Fulton election board agreed to.

She is not the lone skeptic. At least 19 election officials have voted not to certify results in recent years, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation.

Some Republican election board members reluctantly voted to certify this year’s contest and requested state lawmakers provide more time than the one week given to sign off on the results.

“The idea that Georgia’s elections are somehow less than secure just because it’s a very closely divided state and you might be disappointed in the outcome — that’s a lie,” Becker said.

For Becker, the greater challenge following the 2024 election isn’t about convincing voters who won the election. It’s about regaining trust in the electoral process, he said.

That is part of what Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s allies plan to do with the more than $2 million raised through a nonprofit created to bolster trust in the electoral process and defend the outcome of this year’s election.

“There is no one right now claiming suppression or fraud,” said Brian Robinson, a spokesperson for the group. “There seems to be widespread acceptance that this is an accurate and fair outcome.”