A Georgia judge on Saturday rejected a Republican lawsuit trying to block counties from opening election offices this weekend to let voters hand in their mail ballots in person. The lawsuit named only Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to 11% of the state's voters. But at least five other populous counties that tend to vote for Democrats also announced election offices would open Saturday and Sunday to allow hand return of absentee ballots, the AP reports. The lawsuit was filed late Friday and 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 says voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until the close of polls at 7pm on Election Day. Despite that clear 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.
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. State GOP chairman Josh McKoon accused counties controlled by Democrats of "illegally accepting ballots." Fulton County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said that by mid-afternoon Saturday, fewer than 30 ballots had been received at the four locations, per the AP.
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