Georgia Republicans and the Trump campaign sue to stop counties from ‘illegally accepting’ early ballots

Georgia Republicans and former President Trump’s campaign say they are continuing to take legal action against “coordinated efforts” by Democratic-heavy counties to accept ballots after the election. early voting period ended.

A statement from the Republican Party of Georgia, obtained by FOX Business on Sunday, details the party’s latest efforts to prevent counties from counting ballots that were hand-delivered over the weekend.

The lawsuit names seven counties: Clayton County, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Fulton, Chatham and Athens-Clarke. Fulton County houses the state capital, Atlanta.

In the letter, Speaker Josh McKoon alleged that these counties “illegally accepted ballots this weekend AFTER the end of early voting on Friday.”

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“The Georgia Republican Party, along with the RNC, has filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the counting of these ballots,” McKoon wrote. “At the very least, we want to seize ballots submitted without proper oversight from our election monitors.”

“In addition, we have requested the Georgian Foreign Minister and the Attorney General to resolve this issue and find answers to the burning questions we all have,” he added.

McKoon said the Republican Party plans to investigate how a 501c3 organization “knew to inform voters within 15 minutes of early voting close that six Democratic(ish) counties would be extending their weekend hours.”

“Why haven’t these six counties informed the State Election Board, their County Board of Elections, the Secretary of State or their local governments of their plans to essentially expand early voting?” the letter asked. “Who ordered Fulton and Chatham County officials to ban poll observers from monitoring the process? Why did they do this?’

McKoon concluded the update by urging Georgia Republicans to “keep our foot on the accelerator.”

“We will keep the public informed as we go,” the Republican said. “However, this does not change our overall mission. We MUST keep our foot on the accelerator and turn out voters on Tuesday like our lives depend on it. Because it is.”

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The Trump campaign released a statement on Sunday identifying itself as one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“At the last minute, several heavily Democratic counties announced they would open their offices this weekend to receive ballots,” the campaign said in a statement. “This is illegal, so we immediately filed a lawsuit in state court. In a victory for election integrity, counties backed away from their plans to keep mailboxes open this weekend, but we continue to fight the illegal reopening of centers across the state. and federal court.”

“This is a clear, partisan violation of the law designed to boost the efforts of Democrats in Georgia,” the campaign statement said. “With just two days until our nation’s most important election, it is critical that officials follow the law and conduct the election in a fair and transparent manner.”

The new legal action comes a day after a similar lawsuit filed by Republicans was dismissed. On Saturday, a Fulton County judge dismissed a lawsuit over normally closed offices that allowed voters to drop off their ballots over the weekend.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer had rejected arguments from Republican attorney Alex Kaufman, who argued that absentee ballots should not be manually delivered and accepted after the early voting period ends.

“I hold that it is not a violation of these two code sections for a voter to manually return their absentee ballot,” the judge asserted.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the Georgia Republican Party for additional comment.

Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.