Oconee County Superior Court Chief Judge Lisa Lott granted a temporary restraining order on Thursday afternoon requiring the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration to remove the challenge of voters it approved on Oct. 1 and to cancel a hearing on those challenges scheduled for Thursday (Oct. 24) evening.
Judge Lott issued her decision following a nearly 90-minute long hearing on Monday (Oct. 21) on a request by Oconee County resident Susan Noakes for the restraining order.
Attorneys for Noakes argued that the county had violated law approved by the legislature in the 2024 session when the Board of Elections and Registration held a hearing on Oct. 1 of 75 challenges to registered county voters submitted by Oconee County residents Victoria Cruz and Stephen Aleshire.
Noakes filed a cross claim against Sharon Gregg, Director of Oconee County Elections and Registration, and Jay Hanley, Chair of the county’s Board of Elections and Registration, asking for the temporary restraining order.
Gregg and Hanley are defendants in a suit filed by Oconee County resident Suzannah Heimel in which Heimel sought to force the Board to hold a hearing on a separate challenge by Cruz to the registration of 228 persons. Heimel asked the court to force the county to stop registering voters until it held the hearing.
On Oct. 7 Lott allowed Noakes and Common Cause Georgia to intervene as defendants in the case and then dismissed the case that Heimel had filed against the county.
The hearing on Monday focused solely on the request by Noakes for the temporary restraining order.
The pace of early voting for the Nov. 5 election has slowed in recent days, with 1,186 casting a ballot in person on Thursday. Total received and accepted ballots is 13,516, representing 39.4 percent of registered voters in the county. Turnout in November of 2020 was 84.5 percent of active voters.
Ruling On Temporary Restraining Order
Judge Lott ruled on Thursday that Senate Bill 189, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on May 6 of this year, “bars county election officials from considering any challenge--including making the ‘probable cause’ determination required by subsection (b)--during the 45 days preceding an election, regardless of when the challenges were submitted to the Board.”
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| Sign Posted At Meeting Room 10/24/2024 |
Judge Lott said that the “the potential harm to Ms. Noakes and the Oconee voters” from the action taken by the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration on Oct. 1 “is constitutional in nature.”
If the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) were not granted, she wrote, “Oconee voters face the potential of being improperly placed in challenged status, burdening them with extra steps to prove their eligibility during the critical period before an election so that their ballot may be counted or else they risk losing their fundamental right to vote in this election.”
“This significant, constitutional harm outweighs any such harm” the restraining order would cause Gregg and Hanley, she wrote.
Any interest Gregg and Hanley “have is trumped by the voters' fundamental constitutional right to cast their ballots and have them counted, especially in this critical time days before an election,” Judge Lott said.
“Granting the requested TRO will serve the public interest,” Judge Lott wrote. “The public has a strong interest in the right of its qualified citizens to vote without unnecessary encumbrances.”
Judge Lott ordered “that the status of any voter placed on the challenge list or removed from the registration rolls as a result of the BOER's (Board of Elections and Registration) probable cause determination on Oct. l , 2024, be restored to their previous status on the voter registration rolls had the Oct. 1, 2024 challenges not been sustained.”
She also ordered “that no other action pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 21-2-230(b) may be taken in the 45 days preceding an election.”
Oct. 21 Court Hearing
Heimel had filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to force the county to hold a hearing on the challenge by Cruz of the registration of 228 voters on Sept. 12, and Noakes and Common Cause Georgia filed a motion to intervene as a defendant on Oct. 4.
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| Germany (Left) And Hanley During Recess 10/21/2024 |
Noakes also filed a cross-claim against defendants Gregg and Hanley seeking the temporary restraining order.
After a hearing on Oct. 7, Judge Lott granted the request by Noakes and Common Cause Georgia to intervene, dismissed the case filed by Heimel, and set a hearing for Oct. 21 on the request by Noakes for a temporary restraining order.
At the hearing on Monday (Oct. 21), Attorney Pichaya Poy Winichakul said she was representing both Common Cause and Noakes in the lawsuit but the cross claim was only on behalf of Noakes
Winichakul is a senior staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Atlanta.
She was joined on Monday by Akiva Freidlin, at attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Atlanta.
Winichakul focused on the proper legal interpretation of the newly passed legislation defining how challenges to voter registration and voting are to take place.
Freidlin focused on what Winichakul called the policy implications of the law and the requested temporary restraining order.
Comments By Heimel
Heimel, who is representing herself in her legal action, was largely sidelined in the legal discussion on Monday.
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| Judge Lott And Heimel (Back To Camera) 10/21/2024 |
“I'd like to get back to basics, your Honor,” Heimel said. “The last time we were here, you granted their motion to intervene on my case. And then you promptly dismissed my case.”
“I don't understand what we're doing here,” Heimel said.
“I can explain that to you, but I can't give you legal counsel,” Judge Lott said. “So the interveners, the people, the party that I granted intervention rights, filed a cross claim, and because I granted intervener status that cross claim stands and so that cross claim still survives and that's why we're here today.”
Heimel then argued that her case should not have been dismissed while Noakes was allowed to continue with her counter-claim.
“We are here on the intervener's cross claim,” the judge responded. “I'm not here to take up an appeal of what happened last time. I'm not here to take up a motion for reconsideration of what happened last time.”
“I'm not going go any further than that,” she said.
Issuance Of Ruling
Judge Lott at the end of the hearing on Monday said that she would not issue a ruling from the bench.
She filed her ruling just after 3 p.m. today.
Gregg told me her office received notification via email shortly after that time.
The county posted notices at the front entrance to the County Administrative Building and on the door of the meeting room in the Administrative Building where the called meeting of the Board of Elections and Registration scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today. The signs stated simply that the called meeting had been cancelled.
Judge Lott, in her ruling on Thursday, noted that Germany had filed a motion to dismiss the counter claim by Noakes and that “a decision on the motion to dismiss will be made in the ordinary course once it is fully briefed and is not the subject of this order.”
On Oct. 22, Heimel filed a motion for a default judgment in the case claiming that Germany “did not file an appearance in the case and filed his answer late.”
Heimel, an officer in Conservatives of Northeast Georgia, is running for Post 1 on the Board of Commissioners on the Nov. 5 ballot. She qualified as a Democrat, but she has not been active in the Democratic Party and is not being supported by the Democratic Party.
Incumbent Post 1 Commissioner Mark Thomas is the Republican Party nominee on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Video
The video below is of the entire meeting on Oct. 21 before Judge Lott in Courtroom 2 of the Oconee County Courthouse in Watkinsville.
Judge Lott spoke into a microphone, but the podium used by the attorneys did not contain a microphone.
Freidlin in particular is very difficult to hear.
The exchange between Heimel and Judge Lott, during which the Judge reviews the nature of the hearing itself, begins at 1:02:47 in the video.
6 comments:
So illegal ballots can be cast and counted and this is supposed to be for the good of Oconee voters?
Brian Shelnutt: You can oppose illegal ballots and still support compliance with state law.
From Joyce Vance, regarding precedent that applies to the recent court ruling
There is a longstanding rule called the Purcell principle that rejects changes offered too close to elections because they are confusing and can make it too difficult for officials to administer the election. Many of these cases, which are based on lies about noncitizen voting and voter fraud, are attempts to remove voters from the registration rolls within the 90-day “quiet” period where the NVRA forbids that. It’s shocking to see Republicans trying to disenfranchise military voters, too.
Linda Ford
I shouldn’t be surprised that there’s people who are ok with illegal voting.
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