Georgia counties sue Trump over failed election challenges

Two Georgia counties have filed lawsuits this week against former President Donald Trump in his capacity as a candidate, seeking legal fees over failed attempts to overturn the election through voter fraud allegations and vote recounts.

Trump’s 2020 campaign filed more than 50 lawsuits challenging election results across the United States, demanding recounts while alleging various unfounded claims about widespread voter fraud.

Authorities in Cobb County and DeKalb county, near state capital Atlanta, both filed motions in Georgia courts on Monday, Court News reports. DeKalb County called for $6,105 in compensation and Cobb County asked for $10,875.

The Cobb County motion states that the Trump campaign “apparently believed that they could file their baseless and legally deficient actions with impunity, with no regard for the costs extracted from the taxpayers’ coffers or the consequences to the democratic foundations of our country”.

Georgia shocked the US by going for Biden in the 2020 election, all-but cementing Biden’s victory nearly two weeks after polls closed last November.

Biden won Cobb County with 56.35 percent of the vote and DeKalb County with 83.12 percent of the vote. Statewide recounts confirmed the tally.

The Cobb County suit says “nearly 400,000 voters cast ballots in the 2020 Presidential Election. Those 393,728 votes were recounted twice along with the rest of the ballots in the State.”

The county “further submitted to an audit of its absentee ballots” and determined the “Cobb County Elections Department had a 99.99% accuracy rate in performing correct signature verification procedures”, the motion reads.

Trump faces further legal challenges in Georgia, relating to a criminal investigation into his call with Georgia State Secretary Brad Raffensperger where he allegedly urged the state’s top election official to overturn the vote count.

“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump said in a leaked recording of the call.

Cobb County, Georgia is seeking attorneys fees from Trump for the frivolous election contest he and his campaign filed in December.https://t.co/8BIZwCg6X7 pic.twitter.com/7XhfK5Pu3b

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) February 23, 2021

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has sent a letter asking state government officials to preserve documents, including those related to the call, signalling the beginning of a criminal investigation.

Trump faces numerous other legal challenges and probes, including a lawsuit from Democratic lawmakers alleging he violated the Ku Klux Klan Act over his role in the January 6 riot to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory.