Georgia’s postponed primary election has drawn a federal lawsuit that seeks another delay to the end of June.
The suit, filed by a group of voters and advocates often at odds with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also calls for his office to take several sanitation and security steps, including shelving a key component of the state’s new voting machines.
The Coalition for Good Governance is seeking to delay the June 9 primary until June 30 in the face of coronavirus, which has sickened thousands of Georgians and killed hundreds since last month.
The suit also asks the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to force the state to scrap its new touchscreens for the primary in favor of all-paper ballots, which opponents of the new machines have sought in prior litigation.
The touchscreens, which figure as a critical part of the state’s 30,000 new ballot-marking devices, cannot be scrubbed and sanitized thoroughly enough to ensure the virus will not spread when voters use the screens to cast their ballots, the suit argues.
“The coronavirus will survive on the surfaces of touchscreen [devices] for days,” the suit says, “and using the [devices] for in-person voting will obviously enable the transmission of the COVID-19 virus.”
Additionally, the suit calls for the state to reimburse counties for providing Georgia’s roughly 8,000 poll workers with protective masks and gloves on Election Day and during early voting, and to expand several provisions for voting precincts to accept absentee ballots.
The 85-page complaint argues state elections officials are not prepared to hold the primary on June 9, even as Raffensperger’s office ramps up mail-in voting options amid the coronavirus scare.
“Unless in-person voting is carefully planned, regulated, and diligently managed, and unless significant changes are made to how people vote in Georgia, voting in Georgia will remain dangerous to voters and poll workers for the foreseeable future,” the suit says.
In a statement, Raffensperger dismissed the coalition’s claims and attributed the suit largely to political motives, particularly the push by many election advocates for all-paper ballots in Georgia.
“Groups across the country are disingenuously using a crisis to push their failed policies through the court system,” Raffensperger said. “For the liberals, it’s eliminating options for voters and moving to vote by mail.”
The Colorado-based coalition has clashed in the past with Raffensperger in court over the new machines, which opponents argue do not provide enough of a paper trail to guarantee voting integrity.
Raffensperger has repeatedly said the machines will be secure, noting they are the type of devices that the General Assembly last year mandated should be bought.
In recent weeks, Raffensperger postponed federal, state and local primaries originally scheduled for March and May until June 9, amid indications many poll workers might not show up for in-person voting and in the face of pressure from top Georgia lawmakers.
His office has pointed to federal law requiring deadlines for runoff results and ballot creation for the Nov. 3 general election as the reason why the June 9 primary likely could not be delayed again.
Raffensperger also touted steps his office has taken to expand mail-in voting, including by sending applications for absentee ballots to Georgia’s roughly 7 million registered voters – though the lawsuit argued thousands of voters have not received those applications since they were sent to residential addresses and not mailing addresses.
“As our secretary of state, I will continue to fight disingenuous groups who seek to take away options for voters,” Raffensperger said.
Raffensperger also said state officials are taking steps to “encourage the counties to maintain a clean and healthy in-person experience.” He did not specifically address what counties may do to keep the touchscreens clean throughout the voting process.
The lawsuit, citing directions from the device manufacturer, Dominion Voting Systems, claims the new voting machines would have to be shut down, wiped clean and dried after each time a ballot is cast to ensure proper sanitation.
Abiding by that cleaning protocol for every voter would “inevitably derail the in-person voting process and disenfranchise voters,” the suit says.
The suit also highlighted election issues seen earlier this month in Wisconsin’s primary election. News reports showed long lines of Wisconsin voters wearing face masks in the middle of the worst period of the coronavirus outbreak, sparking anguish over the potential health dangers and accusations of voter suppression.
“Unless injunctive relief is granted immediately, Georgia citizens will find themselves in the same position as Wisconsin citizens: unable to vote in person without exposing themselves to the virus [and] unable to vote absentee by mail because the state has not planned for and is not equipped to accurately process and count the anticipated deluge of absentee mail ballots,” the suit says.