RNC renews bid to restrict mail ballot returns in major Georgia county

By Yunior Rivas

Prefer us on Google

to see more of our voting rights news coverage when you search.

FILE - The Republican National Committee logo is shown on the stage at the North Charleston Coliseum, Jan. 13, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. The Republican National Committee’s Washington headquarters was briefly evacuated on Wednesday as police investigated vials of blood that had been addressed to former President Donald Trump, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt, File)

A day after a Georgia judge threw out its challenge to Gwinnett County’s expanded mail ballot return policy, Republicans are pressing ahead with their effort to block the pro-voting policy just five days before early voting begins.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), Gwinnett County Republican Party and GOP secretary of state candidate Tim Fleming filed an emergency motion Thursday asking Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge Warren Davis to stop the county from allowing voters to hand-deliver mail-in ballots at early voting sites without drop boxes. 

Gwinnett is Georgia’s second-largest county and is a major Democratic stronghold.

The new filing comes after Davis on Wednesday dismissed the Republican lawsuit, ruling that Georgia law allows Gwinnett officials to designate additional locations where voters can return completed absentee ballots to trained election officials.

Republicans filed a notice of appeal Thursday and are asking Davis to block the policy for the Nov. 3 election while that appeal proceeds. Early voting begins Oct. 13. 

The RNC argues that if voters begin returning ballots under the policy, their challenge to its use in the November election could become moot before an appellate court has time to act.

“Plaintiffs face imminent irreparable harm due to the prospect that this appeal becomes moot,” the RNC wrote. 

Gwinnett’s policy allows voters at designated early voting locations without drop boxes to hand their completed absentee ballots directly to trained poll managers or assistant managers, who record when the ballots were received and secure them for transport to the county elections office.

Republicans have argued that the process amounts to an unlawful expansion of absentee ballot return locations and circumvents state limits on drop boxes. Davis rejected those claims Wednesday, holding that the county’s system is expressly authorized under Georgia law.

The motion asks Davis to bar enforcement of the policy until either the appeal is resolved or the Nov. 3 election ends, whichever comes first. But unless the court grants that request, Gwinnett’s expanded ballot return policy remains in effect.

*The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Jon Ossoff for Senate parties are intervenor-defendants in the case and are represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG firm chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.