Federal Judge Orders January Trial, Cites Report Stating Georgia’s 2020 Election Was Not Secure

Tom Pappert

Ninth District Court Judge Amy Totenberg on Friday ordered a January 7 trial for a lawsuit against Georgia state officials which claims their administration of the 2020 election was not secure due to the state’s adoption of new ballot imaging devices (BMDs), which it continues to use less than one year before the 2024 election.

Totenberg (pictured above) ordered the January 9 trial for Curling v. Raffensperger, a lawsuit that has been ongoing since 2017, and maintains Georgia’s electronic voting equipment is not secure. Though Georgia modified its election equipment ahead of the 2020 election, a report for the plaintiffs by University of Michigan computer science professor Alex Halderman asserted that the state’s voting equipment, as it is being used, is vulnerable to hacking and manipulation.

Totenberg noted,”[a]s was the case in 2020, Defendants fail to identify a single cybersecurity expert who endorses the current configuration of Georgia’s BMD system” at present, before later referencing the breach of Coffee County election equipment, which saw election data retrieved for the purported purpose of determining whether fraud occurred.

The judge wrote that “critically, the ongoing revelations regarding the January 2021 Coffee County election equipment breach lend serious support to Plaintiffs’ argument that the current  configuration of Georgia’s BMD voting system presents a substantial risk that CGG members’ votes will not be counted as cast.”

Totenberg was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2010 and ultimately approved by the U.S. Senate in 2011.

Georgians associated with that effort were criminally charged in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ racketeering case against former President Donald Trump.

Totenberg ultimately concluded plaintiffs “have presented enough concrete evidence to support CGG’s concern and fear that there is a substantial risk of injury to its members’ right to have their votes counted as cast if they are required to vote on Georgia’s BMD system,” but repeatedly said Georgia voters may be best served by a settlement between Raffensperger and the defendants.

Before announcing the January 7 trial date, Totenberg stated “reasonable, timely discussion and compromise in this case, coupled with prompt, informed legislative action, might certainly make a difference that benefits the parties and the public.”

Totenberg later reminded “the reader that the fact that this Order allows Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims to proceed to trial, with some exceptions, simply means that there are sufficient factual disputes underlying the legal disputes here to require a trial” before again noting that “collaborative efforts to address the issues raised in this case might be more productive for the public good.”

Debbie Dooley, who has been active in Georgia politics since 1976, wrote on X that “Totenberg was scathing in her order about the massive vulnerabilities of Dominion BMDs and the conduct of Raffensperger and company.” Attorney Ron Coleman, of Dhillon Law, called it an “extraordinary ruling.”

Independent journalist Julie Kelly, who investigates the federal weaponization of government in the aftermath of January 6, wrote on X it is “[h]ard to overstate how this trial will impact Jack Smith’s” federal case against Trump.

Kelly noted that Smith made claims about the 2020 election in his federal indictment “that never faced real judicial scrutiny,” and that the Georgia “trial just upped the ante.”

Willis, who has been accused of duplicating Smith’s work by some Democrats, also repeated the phrase “despite the fact that … Trump lost” the 2020 election at least 15 times in her August indictment.

An attorney for Trump’s co-defendant, Harrison Floyd, indicated he intends to prove his client’s innocence at trial by providing evidence Georgia’s 2020 election results were false using data from the Georgia Secretary of State and other state agencies.

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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Judge Amy Totenberg” by Judge Amy Totenberg.

 

 

 

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