Claims that Marc Elias, an attorney for the Democratic Party, sought to influence a recount appeared on December 6.
The law professor at GW, Jonathan Turley, said that Elias “played a crucial role in distorting statements made to the media and Congress on the Steele dossier,” aiding in the propagation of the Russiagate hoax.
Elias has formed “Democracy Docket” to continue using the legal system to influence or hurt elections, despite having been sanctioned by courts for his activities and having failed horribly in his attempt to challenge Glenn Youngkin on behalf of Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s 2021 election.
On November 14, the Democratic Party of Georgia, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and Senator Raphael Warnock’s campaign asked for early voting to be held on the Saturday following Thanksgiving.
It may come as a surprise to find that Elias collaborated with Turley and others to have a state legislature’s law overturned by an activist court. According to Turley, Elias and his supporters are wasting time and energy by trying to use the courts as a “super-legislature.”
If the Robert E. Lee holiday falls on a Friday, some Democrats, notably Barack Obama’s political strategist David Axelrod, have suggested that voters shouldn’t be allowed to cast ballots the following Saturday. Those who try to discourage voters from casting ballots on November 28 by pointing out that it is not an election day are doing two things at once: denying the existence of racism and utilizing the fact that it is not an election day (Thanksgiving). Fewer and fewer individuals from Lee have bothered to attend since Republican Governor Nathan Deal devalued it.
Warnock and Elias, leaders of the Georgia Democratic Party, filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming that its prohibition on early voting was a form of racial discrimination. There hasn’t been much action, and if the runoff system is defective, it can be corrected by the state legislature, not by a court rewriting state election law with less than three weeks until the runoff.
An opponent of the Democrats and director of the Honest Elections Project, Jason Snead, weighed in, saying that everyone was to blame because both Elias and the Democrats had defied Georgia election law and made racist slurs. Snead claims that “famous” attorney Marc Elias is using the courts to “rewrite election laws on the eve of an election.” Truthfully, the situation in Georgia is as dire as it seems.
Snead said that Elias’ criticism of Georgia’s election protocols showed that he was trying to skew the vote tally to his party’s benefit. Instead of revitalizing a dormant statutory holiday in honor of Robert E. Lee, he said it was all about “manipulating the legal system to weaken democratic values for political profit.”
Snead suggests that the Democratic Party’s heightened attention and action in the 2022 midterms may be traced back to worries over voting restrictions in Georgia. All ballots must be at the Georgia State Board of Elections by midnight on Monday, November 26. With strong reasoning, Snead argues that election workers should be paid for taking time off to be with their families throughout the election season. Georgians have till midnight on election night to cast their ballots in the upcoming runoff election.
A “stupid new low in a state that has had record-breaking voting participation,” as Snead put it, is the use of a “dead holiday” to justify stricter election laws and fuel claims of voter suppression.