After voting in Tuesday’s election, Christine Johnson of Evans filed a ballot complaint in Columbia County Superior Court. In less than two hours, the judge held an emergency hearing, but Johnson was a no-show.
Judge J. Wade Padgett noted in the courtroom Tuesday evening, Dec. 6, that no less than five phone calls, emails and texts were made to Johnson to alert her of the hearing because the petition, if true, constituted an emergency.
But Johnson’s petition wasn’t an emergency because there was no impediment to Johnson casting a ballot, Padgett found.
The broiler-plate petition Johnson filed wasn’t unique on election day. Padgett noted he knew of at least one strikingly similar petition filed in Athens-Clarke County.
The Election Day Complaint is for a person to seek court action because he was unable to cast a ballot. Johnson, Padgett noted, explicitly stated she had voted.
“Ms. Johnson may disagree with the voting methodology, but such a complaint goes to an election challenge,” Padgett wrote in his order denying Johnson’s complaint. If she wants to challenge the outcome of the election, an election challenge must be filed within five days of the election’s certification.
In Johnson’s petition, she contended she had no way to verify her ballot was accurately recorded because the electronic voting machine generated a paper ballot that contained a QR code that is used to tabulate votes. The paper ballot also contains the names of candidates selected by the voter.
Much of Johnson’s complaint mirrors other election complaints and claims by Donald Trump’s supporters who contend the electronic voting technology can be manipulated to change results.
In Georgia, the voting machines were updated before the 2020 election. The current machines, unlike the earlier version, produce a paper ballot. After the razor close finish of the 2020 election in which President Joseph Biden was initially declared the winner in Georgia, the state conducted a hand count of all ballots as well as an electronic recount and a spot audit. The results proved Biden won the presidential election in Georgia.
Another petition filed in Columbia County Superior Court last fall by Kristen Lovell sought to force the use of paper ballots in Columbia County for the November general election. A judge cleared the way for the general election with the machines, but he has not yet ruled on the merits of the lawsuit. Similar lawsuits are pending in other counties in Georgia.
The company that manufactures the voting technology used in Georgia and other states, Dominion, has filed billion-dollar defamation lawsuits against Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Attempts by the defendants to get the suit thrown out have failed so far.
