Atlanta (AP) – The Government of the George, which is a population county, must pay $ 10,000 a day for two Republican candidates for its electoral board under a judge’s ruling published on Wednesday.
Supreme Court Judge David Emerson found that the Board of the Fulton District Commissioners did not comply with his previous order to appoint candidates for the electoral board. In his decision, he said earlier this month that the law would not allow commission members to veto qualified candidates proposed by political parties.
In his new written order in which he held the board of the commission members in civil contempt, he imposed a fine of $ 10,000 a day, starting at noon on Friday to pay the state to the state “until the commission shall appoint candidates of the Republican Party’s executive.” He also found that the board of the members of the commission was “stubbornly fair and behaved unfairly” and told her to pay the legal costs of the County Republican Party.
The horizons of the Georgian election
The fight for the appointments of the Fulton County Electoral Board emphasizes the close attention to the Georgian election. President Donald Trump won an important Swinge state last year after he lost four years earlier.
After 2020 Loss of Democrat Joe Biden was Trump and his allies had no evidence that election fraud cost him victory in Georgia. Local, state and federal officials have repeatedly argued that there is no evidence that fraud has affected the result. Conspiracy theories that distributed the Fulton District, a democratic fortress that includes most of the Atlantic city.
The County Electoral Board consists of five members. The Board of the Commissioners shall choose the chairman and the county Republican and Democratic Party appointed two people who will be appointed by the members of the commission. Candidates must live in Fulton County, register to vote and cannot go to the civil service.
As we got here
May On the board of the members of the commission, the democratic majority voted unconfirmed by the appointments of Republican candidates Julie Adams and Jason Frazier, saying that their earlier actions turned them into incorrect candidates.
Adams from 2024 February Worked for the Electoral Board. She abstained from the approval of the results of the primary elections last year and failed to apply to the Electoral Board, asking for a resolution saying that county officials could refuse to approve the election. Frazier officially challenged the suitability of thousands of Fulton County voters.
After its candidates were rejected, the County Republican Party went to court so that the members of the commission could sit them. The party stated that the law does not leave the commission’s members to reject the candidate who meets the basic requirements.
Members of the Democratic Commission admitted that they had to approve two people appointed in each country, but they said that they did not mean they had to accept any candidate.
The judge supported the Republican Party.
“The Board shall appoint two members appointed by the Chairman of the County Executive Committee. These candidates are Jason Frazier and Julie Adams,” Emerson wrote in the order.
The Emerson and the Court of Appeal both refused to suspend the ruling until the commissioners appeal.
After the members of the commission repeatedly met after the original Emerson resolution and did not vote for Adams and Frazier to the Electoral Board, the Republican Party asked Emerson to find the contempt for commissioners.
Arguments
“I was elected by people and I take my responsibility very seriously,” Dana Barrett, Democratic Commissioner, said before Wednesday. People chose it, she said, “To stand up for what is right, and to resist them, and no court, no lawyer, no political party can force me to vote against the best people’s best interests.”
Trey Oliver, a lawyer for the County Republican Party, said at the hearing that the only referee to find democratic members of the commission.
“Simply put them in their own words, these five commission members would prefer to immerse themselves in their voters than to follow this court or any court order,” Oliver said. “It can’t stand it. Our legal system would fold such a global disobedience.”
Don Samuel, a lawyer for commissioners, said his clients were fully respecting the court and its authority, but they tried to make sure their appeal was not made. He said that if they were going along with appointments and the Court of Appeal, then the members of the commission would be decided to remove Adams and Frazier from the Electoral Board.
After Wednesday’s ruling, Samuel said the board would ask that the penalties of contempt be suspended until the appeal was suspended.
The story is repeated
The fight for Republican candidates for the Electoral Board is repeated two years ago by a similar dusting, when the Democrats of the Board of the Commission members twice blocked the Frazier candidacy for the County Electoral Board and the Republican Party.
The Democrats of the Board of the Commissioners’ Board relied on the same arguments they present now. They acknowledge that the law says they “appoint” two candidates presented by each country, but they claim to retain their discretion.
The County Republican Party eventually abandoned 2023. And Adams was appointed to that place.