A Fulton County, Georgia, judge ruled that the state must allow poll watchers to observe the Secretary of State’s office’s final verification of Georgia’s primary election results, deciding so just hours before the state’s polls close.
Three Peach State Republican candidates sued Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over transparency in the 2026 election vote-counting process, requesting poll watchers as Georgians just hit the polls for the general primary. County Judge Ural Glanville made the ruling on the emergency motion on Tuesday.
“Public confidence in the integrity of Georgia’s elections — particularly when the chief election official is a candidate in the very election being administered — depends on robust, independent observation of tabulation and aggregation processes,” Glanville wrote.
Georgia voters are headed to the ballot boxes on Tuesday, voicing their opinions in the state’s hotly watched primary elections, including the gubernatorial race to replace term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), the Senate race for Sen. Jon Ossoff‘s (D-GA) seat, and several other races.
State Sen. Greg Dolezal, who is running for lieutenant governor; Christopher Mora, who is running for Congress; and Keli Gambrill, who is running for Cobb County commissioner, all jointly filed the emergency motion for an injunction on Monday evening. Dolezal celebrated the ruling on Tuesday afternoon.
“Bipartisan members of the State Election Board and poll watchers WILL be allowed inside Secretary Raffensperger’s ‘bunker’ to observe tonight’s process,” Dolezal said in a statement. “Transparency wins. The people of Georgia deserve honest, observable elections.”
The emergency motion, filed in the superior court of Fulton County, marks the latest lawsuit over the state’s election system to reach Raffensperger. Georgia, and specifically Fulton County, has been a hotbed for election-related lawsuits since President Donald Trump challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, which former President Joe Biden won.
Raffensperger, who is now running for governor in the Peach State, had denounced Dolezal’s lawsuit on Monday as a “desperate search for press attention and votes” in a campaign statement.
“For a guy who constantly lectures everyone about election integrity, you’d think Senator Dolezal would know that votes are not counted in the Secretary of State’s Emergency Operations Center,” Raffensperger said. “The real fight to safeguard the ballot box happens at the local level – inside county election offices and tabulation centers across Georgia.”
In Georgia, vote totals are counted at the local level but received and verified in “the bunker,” a room in the Secretary of State’s office, before being published to the vote reporting system.
“But facts clearly aren’t getting in the way of Dolezal’s desperate search for press attention and votes,” Raffensperger said. “So buckle up, Greg. This isn’t my first rodeo. You are about to join Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden, and the New Georgia Project on the long list of people who sued me and lost.”
Raffensperger’s opponent in the GOP gubernatorial primary, Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R-GA), had chimed in on the controversy on Monday night, saying in a statement that “Georgians demand transparency & integrity in our elections. I’m calling on DOJ to weigh in immediately.”
LT. GOV. BURT JONES PICKED FOR JURY DUTY DAY BEFORE GEORGIA PRIMARY RACE
Polls in Georgia close Tuesday evening at 7 p.m.
Georgia lawmakers will discuss how to implement the state’s 2024 election law, which increases transparency efforts in the state, during the July special session that Kemp called, which will also focus on redistricting.