A judge late Friday ordered the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to appoint two Republican election critics to its election board.
Senior Superior Court Judge David Emerson, who presided over the case, said the Democratic-controlled commission violated the order he issued last week when they failed to appoint the GOP nominees.
“The court views the efforts of the defendants at this point as an effort to delay those appointments in bad faith,” he wrote in his Friday order.
The ruling is the latest in an ongoing legal fight over whether the commission must appoint the two nominees of the Fulton County Republican Party to the board. Commissioners rejected them in a party-line vote in May, over concerns about their qualifications and past actions questioning election results and registrations. The GOP sued the commissioners, seeking to compel them to accept the nominations.
Jason Frazier, one of the nominees, has lodged thousands of voter registration challenges in Fulton, a Democratic stronghold. The other GOP nominee, Julie Adams, an incumbent election board member, voted against certifying last year’s primary election.
In Emerson’s ruling, he wrote he would consider holding the commission in contempt if they do not appoint the nominees at their next meeting, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
Before the Friday ruling, attorney Thomas “Trey” Oliver, representing the Fulton County GOP, argued the commission willfully defied Emerson’s decision by not considering the Republican nominees at their last board meeting.
“There is no doubt that the inability to have its nominees on the board of elections is a substantial and significant harm to the Fulton County GOP,” said Oliver. “There is no way to remedy that harm through money.”
Amanda Clark-Palmer, representing the commission, contended that just because the county GOP nominated Adams and Frazier, it doesn’t mean the board is required to appoint them.
“That vote has to mean something,” she said. “The vote is discretionary.”
County election boards are tasked with running and certifying elections, setting polling locations and determining voter eligibility challenges.
The Fulton election board has five members: a chair chosen by the commission, plus two Republicans and two Democrats nominated by their respective parties and appointed by the commissioners.
This isn’t the first time the Fulton GOP has sued the commission over election board appointments. The party also filed a lawsuit against the county after commissioners rejected Frazier in 2023. The party later withdrew the suit and instead selected a different nominee to serve on the election board — Michael Heekin.
Separate from this court battle, the two GOP nominees have been in other election-related legal disputes as well.
In August last year, Frazier filed a lawsuit against the county election board, alleging the county violated state and federal laws by failing to routinely remove ineligible voters from its rolls. He also claimed the county had not acted on a recent challenge in a timely fashion. Frazier voluntarily dismissed the case a month later.
Adams and at least 18 election board members refused to certify election results from 2020 to 2024, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis. But every election board member signed off on President Donald Trump’s victory last fall after a court ruling that certification is mandatory. Adams was the lead plaintiff in that lawsuit.
One day before the hearing on Thursday, the commission appealed Emerson’s ruling from last week to the Supreme Court of Georgia.
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