(CN) — A federal judge in Georgia Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by state Republicans that challenged absentee ballots submitted over the weekend in seven Democratic-leaning counties.
U.S. District Judge R. Stan Baker, a Donald Trump appointee, chastised GOP lawyers in an oral decision issued after a nearly 4-hour hearing Tuesday in the Southern District Court of Georgia, according to the Associated Press.
The judge rejected the last-minute bid by the Republican National Committee and Georgia Republican Party to set aside absentee votes as “frivolous,” according to AP, saying the argument “does not withstand even the most basic level of statutory review and reading comprehension.”
The judge added the complaint was rife with dishonesty, red herrings, and demands that would have required him to break his oath to the Constitution, according to Politico.
A Fulton County judge rejected the same claims Saturday, pointing out the parties were conflating the rules for early voting with the rules regarding the delivery of absentee ballots. The parties filed the federal suit the next day.
Under Georgia law, early voters can fill out a ballot in person until the Friday before the election. By contrast, absentee voters are allowed to deliver their ballot any time prior to the closing of the polls.
In order to accommodate the high number of advance voters, election officials in several counties, including at least one Republican-leaning county that was not named in the suit, kept offices open through the weekend to accept absentee ballots.
Lauren Groh-Wargo, the CEO of Fair Fight, a Georgia-based political organization founded by Democratic star Stacey Abrams, said the judge’s decision was a testament to the strength of U.S. democracy.
“The GOP’s repeated anti-voter lawsuits reveal their true strategy: suppressing votes, especially those who lean Democratic, to tilt the scales in favor of Donald Trump and disregard any kind of truth or law,” Groh-Wargo said. “The Trump-appointed judge who ruled on this suit was clear that their lawsuit was baseless and this decision reinforces that the rule of law and voters’ rights will prevail over partisan efforts to undermine our elections.”
Fair Fight noted the GOP did not challenge ballot-acceptance practices in the Republican-leaning Walton County, where election offices also remained open during the weekend.
Democrats said in a written response to the complaint that the Fulton County Election Board has been forced to defend itself against no less than five “meritless” lawsuits leading up to the election. All were filed by Republicans represented by the same attorney who filed this case — Alex Kaufman.
Kaufman, an attorney for Chalmers, Adams, Backer & Kaufman in Alpharetta, Georgia, and general counsel for the Fulton County Republican Party, was on the line when President Donald Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and urged him to “find” nearly 12,000 votes during the 2020 election.
Kaufman told the Atlanta Jewish Times in 2021 he was on the call because of a possible settlement agreement involving his clients.
“In my view, that call did not cover issues for me to weigh in on, and therefore, I played no role in the conversation,” he said in a statement to the news organization.
Raffensperger, a Republican, wrote on social media Saturday that it was lawful for election officials to accept absentee ballots over the weekend.
“We are working with the counties and the political parties to ensure this is done transparently and within Georgia law,” he wrote.