Georgia Republicans and Trump Campaign File Lawsuit to Stop Counties from ‘Illegally Accepting’ Early Voting Ballots

Georgia Republicans and former President Trump’s campaign say they are continuing to take legal action against a “coordinated effort” by heavily Democratic counties to accept ballots after the early voting period ends.

A statement from the Georgia Republican Party obtained by FOX Business on Sunday detailed the party’s latest efforts to stop counties from counting hand-delivered ballots over the weekend.

The seven counties named in the lawsuit are Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Fulton, Chatham and Athens-Clarke. The state capital of Atlanta is located in Fulton County.

In the letter, Chairman Josh McKoon said those counties “illegally accepted ballots this weekend AFTER early voting ended on Friday.”

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“The Georgia Republican Party and the RNC have filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the counting of these ballots,” McKoon wrote. “At a minimum, we want to confiscate ballots that were cast without proper oversight by our election observers.”

“In addition, we have asked the Secretary of State and the Attorney General of Georgia to participate in resolving this issue and find answers to the pressing questions that we all have,” he added.

McKoon said the GOP intends to find out how the 501c3 organization “knew it would inform voters within 15 minutes of the early close of voting that six Democratic IC counties would be extending their holidays.”

“Why did these six counties not inform the state board of elections, their county board of elections, the secretary of state or local governments about their plans to significantly extend early voting?” – asked the letter. “Who gave the order to Fulton and Chatham County officials to ban poll watchers from observing the process? Why did they do this?

McKoon concluded the report by urging Georgia Republicans to “keep the pedal to the metal.”

“We will keep the public updated along the way,” the Republican said. “However, this does not change our overall mission. We MUST keep our foot on the gas and vote out voters on Tuesday like our lives depend on it. Because that’s how it is.”

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The Trump campaign released a statement 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 over the weekend to receive mail-in ballots,” the campaign said in a statement. “This is illegal, so we immediately filed a lawsuit in state court. To ensure election integrity, counties have abandoned plans to keep mailboxes open on weekends, but we continue to fight illegal reopenings across the state. and federal court.”

“This is a clear, partisan violation of the law designed to galvanize Democratic efforts in Georgia,” the campaign said in a statement. “With just two days left until our country’s most important election, it is critical that officials follow the law and conduct the election fairly and transparently.”

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

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer rejected all arguments presented by GOP lawyer Alex Kaufman, who argued that absentee ballots should not be hand-delivered and accepted after the end of the early voting period.

“I find that a voter’s manual return of absentee ballots does not violate these two sections of the code,” the judge said.

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

Bree Stimson of Fox News Digital and The Associated Press contributed to this report.