A think tank founded by former Trump administration officials is filing a lawsuit on behalf of a Republican election official in Fulton County seeking to refuse to certify the election results.
Lawyers with the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute filed the lawsuit on May 22 on behalf of Julie Adams, who has served on the Fulton County Board of Elections since February. The lawsuit asks a court to “clarify” that Adams' duties to certify the election are “in fact discretionary” and not required by law.
Adams argues in his lawsuit that part of Georgia's law is open to interpretation. The law states that county officials “must” certify the results after verifying their accuracy.
A day before filing the lawsuit against the county board and election director, Adams refused to certify the results of the May 21 primary election, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. She abstained, saying she would not certify any results until she had access to detailed election data. Her lawsuit also seeks access to those election records, which include information on voting records, mail-in ballots and “votes cast” records.
Nationwide efforts to deny certification of election results
The lawsuit is the result of new legal efforts by people close to former President Donald Trump to sow doubts about the election results in Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia. The area is familiar to Trump's campaign team. In Fulton County, former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani first made refuted claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election.
Georgia isn't the only target, though. Over the past four years, Republican election officials have rejected or delayed the certification process in eight states at least 15 times, according to Rolling Stone. GOP election officials in Arizona, Michigan and New Mexico recently used this tactic to question the validity of election results.
Axios reports that the Republican National Committee is hiring lawyers, legal observers and election monitors en masse.
An RNC official told Axios that the committee plans to hire an extensive network of lawyers to prepare briefs challenging the results of the November election.
The RNC has already hired 13 state directors for “election integrity” to conduct trainings with local election officials in swing states. The committee plans to recruit 100,000 volunteers, lawyers and law students as poll watchers.
Adams' lawsuit in Fulton County appears to be part of that broader effort. In a statement, Georgia Democratic Party Chairwoman and Congresswoman Nikema Williams said the lawsuit was “an obvious attempt to set the stage” to “block the certification of the November election when [Trump is] defeated again.”
