ByWTOC Staff|November 4, 2020 at 8:02 PM EST - Updated November 4 at 11:46 PM
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - The Georgia Republican Party and President Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a lawsuit against the Chatham County Board of Elections asking a judge to order the county to secure and account for ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day.
Georgia Republican Party Chair David Shafer tweeted Wednesday that party lawyers have filed an emergency petition against the Chatham County board
In this lawsuit the Georgia GOP and The Trump Campaign say absentee ballots were possibly counted that arrived after 7 PM on Election day.
In the lawsuit, the Ga. GOP claims an observer saw “absentee ballots that had not been properly processed apparently mixed into a pile of absentee ballots that was already set to be tabulated.”
The poll watcher says he saw four bins of ballots and then saw a poll worker bring a stack of ballots from a back room and then placed them on a table near the bins with ballots. He says after leaving the room and then returning the bins were gone and found out they were en route to the Annex where absentee ballots are being processed and tabulated.
He then says he was unable to find a stack of 53 ballots.
David Shafer, the Chairman of the state party, was made aware of the complaints and addressed that the lawsuit has been filed, quote, “to enforce election laws and prevent the unlawful counting of absentee ballots received after the election.”
Chatham County Board of Elections Chairman Tom Mahoney III released a statement to WTOC saying, “The Chatham County Board of Elections is following Georgia elections law, and I believe that the specific allegations of the observer, I believe that the observer is mistaken.”
You can read the lawsuit below:
WTOC spoke with Antwan Lang, a democratic member of the Chatham County Board of Elections, who stated the board was not aware of the lawsuit at the time.
Lang did provide this statement, “We are committed to making sure every vote is counted and secure. We are confident the Board of Registrar’s has done their due diligence in protecting the right to vote and the Board of Elections will continue to process ballots until every vote is counted.”
We also reached out to the Georgia Trump Campaign and the Biden Campaign and they did not want provide a comment.
Secretary of State Raffensperger has a news conference planned for Thursday and it is anticipated that he will address this.
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