Fulton County, GA, is the most Democratic county in the state. It includes the city of Atlanta.
The county voted 73% for Biden in 2020, and given the right lean in most of the rest of the state, a Democratic presidential candidate must come out with a huge 70%+ edge in Fulton County to win statewide.
Naturally, Democrats are going to do everything in their power to make that happen. That is, by hook or by crook.
Fulton County Democrats decided to open their election offices on Saturday and Sunday to allow people to hand in their mail-in ballots in person. Other Democratic countries in the state followed suit despite it being a direct violation of state law.
"This is a blatant violation of Georgia law . . . which states ‘all drop boxes shall be closed when the advance voting period ends,’" the Georgia GOP said in a statement late on Friday.
The Trump campaign sent letters to Fulton County -- as well as Chatham, Athens-Clarke, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties -- demanding the ballots they received over the weekend be kept separate from other ballots because they intend to sue over the issue.
The suit they filed alleged that keeping the offices open was a violation of state law, even though the law also stated "voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until the close of polls at 7 p.m. on Election Day," according to the Associated Press.
“I find that it is not a violation of those two code sections for a voter to hand-return their absentee ballots,” Farmer said.
Republicans have been focused on the conduct of elections in Fulton County for years, after President Donald Trump falsely blamed Fulton County workers for defrauding him of the 2020 election in Georgia.
State GOP chairman Josh McKoon accused counties controlled by Democrats of “illegally accepting ballots.” The issue quickly gained traction online Saturday among Republican activists, particularly after a Fulton County election official sent an email to elections workers saying that observers would not be allowed to sit inside election offices while ballots were turned in.
The Trump campaign's beef wasn't necessarily with the fact that the ballots were being turned in. They say that their observers are not allowed to be present when the ballots are handed in. The Democrats said that because the offices were not polling places, there was no need for Republicans to be present.
There's supposed to be an independent monitoring team observing Fulton elections and a representative from the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's "might" be present.
We shouldn't worry, though. The voters have to pinky-swear they're on the up and up.
"All voters returning absentee ballots in person to the Department of Registration & Elections must sign an affidavit indicating whether they are returning the ballot for themselves or an authorized family member, household member or person in their care," the Fulton County Department of Registration & Elections said in a news release Saturday evening.
Well, that clinches it.
Resisting even rudimentary election integrity measures disguised as making voting "easier" doesn't cut it in 2024. No one is demanding draconian measures that would in any way suppress the vote. These are common sense steps that the county can take to build confidence in its voting procedures
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