The Georgia Court of Appeals reinstated the 2020 Fulton County counterfeit ballot case of VoterGa without further briefs, setting up a reversal of its prior lack of standing ruling against the nonprofit coalition of citizens working to restore election integrity in the state.
A press statement from VoterGA about the ruling last week noted:
The reversal comes as no surprise to the Petitioners who, for over a year, maintained they have standing, even after the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the lower court finding on July 1, 2022.
The Georgia Supreme Court overturned both lower court rulings, unanimously and without a hearing, on December 20.
The decision, which, according to VoterGA, “corroborated over a dozen state and U.S. Supreme Court precedents in Petitioners’ briefs and appeal that the lower courts ignored,” was reached following a motion to expedite the VoterGA writ of certiorari filed by VoterGA attorney Todd Harding. Defendants subsequently responded to the motion as well.
VoterGA noted:
Co-attorney Paul Kunst then explained how Defendant Attorneys mislead the Supreme Court in claiming the court’s recent decision on other standing claims had nothing to do with VoterGA Petitioners standing claims.
“The Petitioners were aware they would receive a favorable Supreme Court ruling since October 25, 2022, when the Georgia Supreme Court confirmed Georgia citizens, residents and taxpayers have standing to sue government officials who violate Georgia law,” the press statement said. “At that time, the court took an extra step and confirmed its ruling extended to voters because they are community stakeholders too. Their October ruling applies to cases where individuals sued over the illegal removal of Confederate monuments and were told by a Superior Court they had no standing.”
In the original VoterGA Equal Protection and Due Process election claim filed on December 23, 2020, nine VoterGA Petitioners alleged counterfeit ballots are among the Fulton County 2020 absentee election results:
Their claim is based on sworn affidavits from senior poll managers who handled absentee ballots during the hand count audit on November 14, 2020. Petitioners also allege the infamous State Farm Arena absentee ballot processing video shows several violations of Georgia election law.
After the petitioners separated into two separate cases, they were handed lower court victories for 10 months, including one that ordered the unsealing of ballots. Suddenly, however, the cases were dismissed.
“A Superior Court claimed they did not have standing or a ‘particularized injury’ immediately after Fulton County hired criminal defense attorneys at taxpayer expense to prevent Petitioners from reviewing the ballots,” the election integrity organization said in the statement.
“The mis-application of state and federal law, as well as case precedents, caused a two-year delay that prevented us from ensuring Georgia has honest, transparent elections,” said a VoterGA co-founder regarding the group’s two-year effort to identify counterfeit ballots. “This double standard of justice impacted millions of Georgians and is one of the greatest voting rights violations in the state’s history.”
In early December 2022, VoterGA reported further evidence that, the group asserted, substantiated a more than 20,000-vote decline in former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s election vote count at 10 p.m. on the night of Election Day in November.
VoterGA noted “before and after” screenshots of interim election results reported by Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) for the 2022 General Election “show the inexplicable decrease for Herschel Walker.”
“At the same time, opponent Rafael Warnock’s total increased by over 4,000 votes and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver’s total increased by over 300,” the group observed in advance of the runoff election.
“There is no technical explanation I can see for one candidate’s vote totals to decrease dramatically during an election especially when his opponents’ totals are increasing at the exact same time,” said VoterGA co-founder Garland Favorito at the time. “We are concerned that this indicates some type of electronic vote manipulation that the office of the Secretary of State is unwilling to investigate and explain. That puts the runoff at risk of the same problem.”
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Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Raphael Warnock” by Reverend Raphael Warnock. Photo “Herschel Walker” by Herschel Walker. Background Photo “Courtroom” by Carol M. Highsmith.
So what does this mean for Hershel Walker? Will there be a runoff election?