Judge Rewrites Georgia Law to Favor Warnock
The American Spectator by David Catron 11/20/2022
Notorious pettifogger Marc Elias convinces court to ignore the plain text of election statute. Now that the Republicans have eked out a majority in the House of Representatives, one midterm mystery remains: Who will Georgia send to the U.S. Senate? Because incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock couldn’t convince a majority of Georgia voters to reelect him on Nov. 8, he must face GOP challenger Herschel Walker in a Dec. 6 runoff. Democratic angst over the rematch was such that they sent controversial Clinton attorney Marc Elias to drag Warnock over the finish line.
In Georgia, candidates for statewide office must win 50 percent of the vote — plus one — to be declared the winner. Warnock spent a record-breaking $75.9 million yet garnered only 49.4 percent. Walker received 48.5 percent, and 2.1 percent went to Libertarian spoiler Chase Oliver. The latter won’t be on the Dec. 6 ballot, and this worried the Democrats enough to call in Elias, who filed a lawsuit alleging that the state illegally prohibited early voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger responded as follows:
If recent elections prove one thing, it’s that voters expect candidates to focus on winning at the ballot box- not at the courthouse. Senator Warnock and his Democratic Party allies are seeking to change Georgia law right before an election based on their political preferences. Instead of muddying the water and pressuring counties to ignore Georgia law, Senator Warnock should be allowing county election officials to continue preparations for the upcoming runoff.
At issue was a 2016 statute that prohibits early voting on the second Saturday before a runoff if it follows a “legal holiday occurring on the Thursday or Friday immediately preceding such second Saturday.” The Elias lawsuit argued that the law applies only to primary and general elections, despite six references to runoffs in its text. Last Friday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox ruled in favor of Warnock, finding that the law “does not explicitly prohibit counties from conducting advance voting on Saturday, November 26, 2022.”
Warnock was predictably elated by the ruling. Friday evening, he took to Twitter and celebrated the decision: “This is a big WIN for democracy. Saturday voting is critical for Georgia voters, especially students and workers. I’m glad the courts have spoken in favor of making it easier for Georgia voters to have a say in their own democracy.” Not everyone saw it as a victory for the voters, however. Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project, issued a statement denouncing the judge’s misreading of the statute:
More:
https://spectator.org/judge-rewrites-ga-law-to-favor-warnock/
