A Georgia judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit filed by the state Republican Party and President Trump’s campaign that accused officials in Chatham County of mishandling absentee ballots.
The lawsuit was the first in what the Georgia GOP claimed would be a dozen targeting counties that are busy counting more than 60,000 outstanding absentee ballots in the battleground state.
The suit claimed that at least 53 ballots were potentially mishandled by the Chatham County Board of Elections. Chatham, which lies in coastal southeast Georgia and includes Savannah, typically leans left.
Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass did not give an explanation for why he dismissed the lawsuit.
County election officials testified during the one-hour hearing that all 53 ballots had been received on time.
Georgia is the third state in which the president’s campaign has filed a lawsuit. Michigan and Pennsylvania are the other two. The campaign has asked for a recount in Wisconsin.
The Peach State, while once reliably conservative, recently became a battleground state as demographics, particularly in the metro Atlanta area, have shifted.
