Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger issued a final ruling Tuesday stating that Tiffani Johnson is ineligible to run for the seat held by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.
The decision by Raffensperger, a Republican, follows an administrative law judge’s ruling last week that Johnson was ineligible after she failed to appear at a hearing on her challenge to eligibility.
Johnson said in an emailed statement Wednesday that his group is ‘‘appealing this decision to the Secretary of State and the Fulton Superior Court and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail.
Even if Johnson’s appeal fails, McAfee still faces another challenger, civil rights attorney Robert Patillo, in May’s nonpartisan election. Georgia Statute allows any person qualified to vote for a candidate to challenge that candidate’s qualifications by filing a complaint with the Secretary of State’s office within two weeks of the election.
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Attorneys for Fulton County voter Sean Arnold filed the lawsuit on March 22, and a hearing before Administrative Law Judge Ronit Walker was held on April 2.
He noted that in Johnson’s qualifying documents, she listed her home address as being in DeKalb County and wrote that she had legally resided in neighboring Fulton County for ‘‘0 consecutive years.
The qualifying documents signed by Johnson include a line stating that a candidate is a voter in the district in which I reside who is eligible to vote in the election in which I am a candidate.
Kendra-Sue Derby, Johnson’s campaign strategist, wrote in an email that the law requires superior court judges to live in the district when they take office, not when they qualify.
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She pointed to a section of the code that lists the following qualifications for superior court judges: They must be at least 30 years old, have lived in Georgia for three years, have practiced law for seven years, and be a member of the state regulatory agency.
Walker’s initial ruling declared that Johnson failed to appear at the hearing. Walker concluded that Johnson was not qualified to be a candidate for Superior Court Judge of the Atlanta Judiciary.
The law requires that if the Secretary of State determines that a candidate is ineligible, that person’s name must be removed from the ballot or removed from any pre-printed ballot.
If there is insufficient time to cross out a candidate’s name or reprint the ballot, a prominent notice must be posted at the polling place notifying voters that the candidate has been disqualified and that the vote is in favor of that person will not be counted.
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McAfee stands out above many other high court judges because he presided over Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of Trump.
The indictment issued in August accused the former Republican president and 18 others of participating in a massive conspiracy to attempt to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia after his defeat in Democrat Joe Biden.
Four people pleaded guilty after reaching an agreement with prosecutors. Trump and others have pleaded not guilty McAfee has not yet set a trial date.
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