Trump supporter sues Georgia in attempt to stop election results

November 5, 2020 Atlanta: Fulton County election workers were hard at it again on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020 counting ballots at State Farm Arena. Fulton County officials say election workers have completed processing absentee-by-mail ballots. Fulton elections head Richard Barron said that 145,748 absentee-by-mail ballots have been processed. Of that, he said, results of 138,000 have been posted online and 1,200 more absentees that required more signature verification will come later today — meaning there’s a difference of roughly 7,000 between what’s been processed and what’s been posted. There are still 3,600 provisional ballots and an undetermined amount of military overseas ballots left to be finalized. The deadline for those is 5 p.m. Friday. (John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com)

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

November 5, 2020 Atlanta: Fulton County election workers were hard at it again on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020 counting ballots at State Farm Arena. Fulton County officials say election workers have completed processing absentee-by-mail ballots. Fulton elections head Richard Barron said that 145,748 absentee-by-mail ballots have been processed. Of that, he said, results of 138,000 have been posted online and 1,200 more absentees that required more signature verification will come later today — meaning there’s a difference of roughly 7,000 between what’s been processed and what’s been posted. There are still 3,600 provisional ballots and an undetermined amount of military overseas ballots left to be finalized. The deadline for those is 5 p.m. Friday. (John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com)

An Atlanta attorney who supports President Donald Trump sued Friday to try to prevent Georgia election results from being finalized.

The federal lawsuit by Lin Wood alleges that absentee ballot signature review procedures violate the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit comes as the Trump campaign’s legal attempts across the nation are falling short in court.

Courts in Michigan and Pennsylvania rejected claims of widespread fraud and irregularities on Friday. In Arizona, attorneys for the Trump campaign dropped a lawsuit after acknowledging it didn’t involve enough votes to change election results.

The lawsuit in Georgia — where Biden leads by 14,000 votes with a recount underway — takes issue with a settlement this spring between Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the Democratic Party of Georgia.

The agreement requires election workers to consult with two of their peers before rejecting absentee ballots because of possible mismatched signatures. The suit alleges that change needed approval from the Georgia General Assembly.

“Such a procedure creates a cumbersome bureaucratic procedure to be followed with each defective absentee ballot — and makes it likely that such ballots will simply not be identified by the county officials,” the suit states.

Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs called the lawsuit a “silly, baseless claim.”

“Signature match is intact, and the General Assembly passed legislation to allow voters who failed to include a signature time to add one,” Fuchs said. “We strengthened signature match, period.”

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to stop Raffensperger from certifying election results, prevent him from certifying results that include “defective” absentee ballots, or require alleged ballot deficiencies to be corrected.

Wood has previously represented high-profile clients including Richard Jewell, Herman Cain and the parents of JonBenet Ramsey.