Lin Wood sues Georgia over runoff elections, says state is violating U.S. Constitution

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He claims Georgia is violating state law as well.

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L. Lin Wood, Dec. 2019

(Apu Gomes/Getty)

Trump team lawyer Lin Wood on Friday filed suit against the state of Georgia, arguing that the state is violating the U.S. Constitution and Georgia law in several ways with respect to its handling of next month’s runoff elections.

In the lawsuit, filed in an Atlanta district court, Wood claims, in part, that state secretary Brad Raffensperger has broken Georgia law by his alleged “unlawful abrogation of the Georgia legislature’s statutory mail-in absentee ballot signature verification procedure.”

Wood argues that Raffensperger violated state law by his agreement earlier this year with multiple Democratic complainants to implement, as Wood puts it, “totally different standards to be followed [by] a poll worker processing absentee ballots in Georgia.” Raffensperger in that settlement agreed in part to alter, via an election bulletin, Georgia's method of verifying signatures on absentee ballots. 

“The Settlement Agreement and Official Election Bulletin are unconstitutional and represent a usurpation of the Georgia Legislature’s plenary authority to set the manner of elections,” Wood argues, noting that the legislature's authority in that regard flows from the U.S. Constitution. 

Wood claims that the state is breaking the law in several other manners, including the “unlawful installation of unauthorized ballot drop boxes.”

The lawsuit seeks a ruling “declaring that that 2020 Senatorial runoff election procedures of the Defendants violate the guarantee clause; enjoining the use of said unconstitutional procedures in the runoff; [and] declaring the runoff election procedures described herein defective and requiring Defendants to cure their violation.”