A judge has ordered a primary election ‘re-do’ for two Republican state house candidates after a series of questions and a lawsuit arose over the integrity of the election.
The ruling was made this week, but incumbent State Representative Dan Gasaway lost his primary re-election back in May by 67 votes to challenger Chris Erwin. Gasaway early on claimed there were errors in voter data.
CNN reported:
Laurel Ellison, who was listed as a co-defendant in the lawsuit as the elections supervisor for Habersham County, where most of the errors occurred, said at Tuesday’s hearing that some of the discrepancies had been caused by complications in the county’s redrawing of district lines in recent years.
Ellison said the county had determined that 70 people voted in the wrong district in May.
Mark Davis, president of Data Productions Inc., a voter-data consulting company that has previously worked for Gasaway’s campaign, testified Tuesday that he also found errors in Gasaway’s district but that such discrepancies “exist all over the state. It’s not anything unique to this district.”
Judge David Sweat said Tuesday in Northeast Georgia that it was not clear who was responsible for the misallocation of residents nor was it clear who the people who voted in the wrong district would have otherwise voted for. Sweat said a new election would be required.
“The court’s real concern is that people have confidence in our elections,” Sweat said.
The re-do election date has not yet been set.
