In comments Sunday, state Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, implied that the decision to accept ballots over the weekend was an inappropriate extension of in-person early voting, which ended Friday.
Explore Use this tool to track your absentee ballot in Georgia
“I think the 19 days of early voting went through without a problem,” Beach said at the North Fulton Service Center in Sandy Springs, where the county accepted ballots. “Voters are starting to gain confidence again in the process. Now what this has done is that these hoaxes have sown doubt about the credibility of the electoral process.
Max Pflugrath, a spokesman for the liberal voting rights group Fair Fight, said supporters of Republican Donald Trump are spreading false claims and misinformation “with the goal of undermining confidence in our elections.”
“Trump’s ally’s plan is clear: spread false claims about election fraud, use those false claims to anger their followers and then encourage them to wreak havoc in the elections office(s),” Pflugrath said. “Elections are decided by voters who choose, not election deniers who use false claims to sow chaos — their plan will fail.”
State law allows absentee ballots to be returned to county elections offices by mail or in person until 7 p.m. Tuesday. It allows local boards of elections to establish other locations to accept absentee ballots, including government buildings or other buildings used as polling places on Election Day.
Because of issues with the U.S. Postal Service, Fulton County spokeswoman Jessica Corbett said people who waited until the Oct. 25 deadline to request an absentee ballot could not expect their ballots to be delivered on time. Having county offices open to accept them this weekend makes it convenient for people who work and may not be able to turn in their ballots in person on Monday or Tuesday, she said.
ExploreIf you still have an absentee ballot, the best advice is to return it in person to the elections office
However, Fulton County’s decision prompted Republican county and state officials to file a lawsuit late Friday. At a hearing early Saturday, they argued that voters could not return their ballots in person between the close of early in-person voting on 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 Republican Party filed another lawsuit in federal court in Savannah. They sought to prevent 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 — like Walton — that also opened offices this weekend to allow voters to drop off ballots.
On Saturday, Fulton initially denied Republicans the opportunity to monitor locations accepting absentee ballots. The county clarified and acknowledged the rules by midday, Corbett said.
On Sunday, Republican, Democratic and other observers watched voters cast their ballots at the Sandy Springs office in Fulton.
Bill Baskett, 69, of Roswell, was one of the public observers who came to monitor the process because of his concerns about voter fraud.
“I’m checking to see if anyone brought a pile of absentee ballots, because I heard they stuffed the absentee ballot boxes with fraudulent ballots last time,” he said. He added that he believes voters should not be allowed to return mail-in ballots after early voting ends.
It appears that some observers took photos of voters as they headed to drop their ballots.
“There was a lady who had six or seven ballots,” said Irina Moskowitz, a Republican poll watcher, showing the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a photo she took of multiple ballots in a voter’s hand.
Under Georgia law, people can drop off ballots for family members. Those who deliver ballots in person are required to complete an affidavit stating they are delivering ballots to themselves or to family members permitted by law, Corbett said.
Beach spent time filming social media videos in the Sandy Springs office over the weekend. Four years ago, he was one of several lawmakers who aided Trump’s efforts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in Georgia.
Beach on Sunday ignored a Fulton judge’s ruling that state law allows ballots to be accepted over the weekend.
“The spirit of the law is that we have 19 days of early voting, weekend voting and election voting,” he said. “Everything should have stopped on Friday.”
Pflugert, the Fair Fight spokesman, saw it differently.
“False claims are all the MAGA GOP has — they have no plans to improve people’s lives, so they resort to misinformation aimed at undermining trust in our elections.”
