- Georgia features two high-stakes statewide campaigns: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) against Rep. Mike Collins (R) for Senate, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) against businessman Rick Jackson (R) for governor.
The big picture: The Justice Department revealed in court Friday that the administration sent letters to officials in California, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada, asking some states to separate absentee ballots from presumed non-citizen voters.
- A federal judge issued an emergency order Friday that prevents federal officials from threatening to charge election officials who count the ballots of voters the DOJ considers ineligible.
- In October, a federal judge restricted the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations into suspected non-citizen voters.
But Georgia is different. “We managed, with duct tape and chewing gum, to get through one last round, but that’s no way to run elections,” a Georgian election official told Axios.
- The Georgia State Board of Elections has asked the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to review and potentially investigate the state’s election system and handling of election data.
- The September 30 letter cited outdated software, threats to voting secrecy and QR code ballots that it said could violate the Help America Vote Act.
- A DOJ spokesperson said in response to the letter: “We take seriously allegations that election officials failed to adequately maintain election equipment and failed to comply with federal law. We are evaluating the request and will investigate and, if appropriate, take enforcement action consistent with federal law.
The other side: Georgia State Board of Elections Chairman John Fevrier, appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R), opposed the letter and told Axios that a majority of the board now believes it “went far beyond what was in the resolution.”
- Michon Lindström, senior communications director for the Georgia Secretary of State, said: “It is unfortunate that the state election board sought to sow chaos in the eleventh hour of the election. »
- In 2020, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pushed back against Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of Georgia’s presidential election.
Point of friction: Georgia has spent years debating how to address vulnerabilities in its election system.
- The secretary of state’s office said Georgia’s machines have not been updated since they were purchased in 2019. The state said it is beginning a process to purchase new machines for the next election cycle.
- The state legislature passed a law in 2024 to abandon the QR code voting system in favor of hand-marked paper ballots. This transition was supposed to be implemented by next July, but lawmakers extended the deadline.
- A software issue on the state’s tabulators that could impact ballot secrecy has been known to the state since 2022. But no available fix has been installed.
Between the lines: “There are no clean hands in this matter,” the Georgia election official told Axios. “The secretary of state could have fought harder to get the funding…(The) Legislature could have funded it when the secretary of state asked for it. But…they all got so upset.”
- In 2025, Raffensperger urged lawmakers to reconsider a $47 million upgrade to the voting machine, proposing a software update costing less than $15 million or delaying any purchase until the existing contract expires.
- In 2026, Raffensperger told lawmakers there was no money to improve elections. No upgrades have been funded.
What they say: “Allocating money is ultimately the function of the Legislature, and any questions about why they did not find it necessary to fund ‘election infrastructure improvements’ should be directed to the Legislature,” Lindstrom told Axios.
- Fevrier told Axios, “I blame the Legislature. If the Legislature thought this was a problem, they would have fixed it, and they didn’t.”
- The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to Axios’ request for comment.
The bottom line: The Trump administration suffered a setback in California on Friday, where an appeals court rejected its request to void mail-in ballots. But the conflict in Georgia shows that the fight against federal intervention in national elections is far from over.
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