Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is locked in a tight runoff race against Republican challenger Herschel Walker, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday that seeks to reverse a state law prohibiting Saturday voting.
Over the weekend, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office notified county officials that there would be no voting on Nov. 26, the second Saturday before the Dec. 6 runoff, because it is two days after Thanksgiving and one day after a state holiday that commemorated Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s birthday. The Georgia legislature dropped the tribute to Lee in 2015 but kept the state holiday.
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“Illegal attempts to block Saturday voting are another desperate attempt by career politicians to squeeze the people out of their own democracy and to silence the voices of Georgians,” Quentin Fulks, Warnock’s campaign manager, said in a press release.
Warnock and Walker are running neck-and-neck in the U.S. Senate runoff after both failed to win an outright majority in the general election.
Raffensperger initially agreed that the runoff would include Saturday voting but reversed course, citing the probation in the 2016 law.
Warnock and the Democratic Party of Georgia argued that the law applies only to primary and general elections, not the runoffs. They claimed that the law specifically mentions runoffs in other parts but does not mention it when it comes to Saturday voting and that the omission should be considered intentional.
The state legislature passed a new voting law last year that scheduled runoffs four weeks after the general election. In previous years, they were held nine weeks after the general election.
Rebecca DeHart, the executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia, called Raffensperger’s move to stop Saturday voting “deeply concerning for anyone who believes in the right to vote.”
“We will use every legal tool at our disposal to ensure that Georgia counties can offer voters ample opportunity to cast their ballot as laid out in state law,” she said.
Raffensperger sent out a statement slamming the lawsuit.
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“If recent elections prove one thing, it’s that voters expect candidates to focus on winning at the ballot box — not at the courthouse,” he said. “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.”
