A federal court today denied the request by the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party for a preliminary injunction that could have stopped the counting of absentee ballots that were hand-delivered to the county elections’ offices over the weekend in seven Georgia counties.
The Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers’ Committee and the Law Offices of Gerry Weber filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, and the League of Women Voters of Georgia in support of the seven Georgia counties urging the court to let the counties count the ballots.
Pooja Chaudhuri, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called the ruling a “major victory and a sensible ruling protecting the right to vote in Georgia and identifying the lawsuit as frivolous.”
The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party had filed a lawsuit against seven of Georgia’s most populous and diverse counties with large percentages of Black voters and other voters of color. These seven counties kept their election offices open over the weekend (from November 2-4) to give absentee voters more time to return their absentee ballots. The actions of the seven counties are authorized by the Georgia Election Code and are entirely consistent with state law.
A link to the amicus brief is here.
This case involves hand delivery of absentee ballots before 7 p.m. Election Day. It is different from the case that the Georgia Supreme Court ruled on yesterday involving Cobb County.
