Trump's election probes find an opening in Georgia
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On the eve of midterms, President Trump is facing setbacks left and right in his push to investigate alleged election fraud. But in Georgia, he has an opening.
Why it matters: Six years ago, Georgia was at the epicenter of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Now the state's own election board has invited his administration to investigate its voting system.
- Georgia features two high-stakes statewide campaigns: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) against Rep. Mike Collins (R) for Senate, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) against businessman Rick Jackson (R) for governor.
The big picture: The Justice Department disclosed in court on Friday that the administration has sent letters to officials in California, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada, asking some states to segregate mail-in ballots from suspected noncitizen voters.
- A federal judge on Friday issued an emergency order that blocks federal officials from threatening to charge election officials who count ballots from voters the DOJ claims are ineligible.
- In October, a federal judge restricted the Department of Homeland Security's investigations into suspected noncitizen voters.
But Georgia is different. "We've managed with duct tape and bubble gum to be able to bootstrap our way through one last round, but that's not a way of running elections," a Georgia election official told Axios.
- Georgia's State Election Board asked the Justice and Homeland Security departments to review and potentially investigate the state's voting system and handling of election data.
- The Sept. 30 letter cited outdated software, threats to ballot secrecy and QR-code ballots it says may violate the Help America Vote Act.
- A DOJ spokesperson said in response to the letter: "We take seriously allegations that election officials have failed to adequately maintain election equipment and otherwise comply with federal law. We are evaluating the request and will investigate and, if appropriate, bring an enforcement action consistent with federal law."
The other side: Georgia State Election Board Chair John Fevrier, appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R), opposed the letter and told Axios that a majority of the board now believes it "far exceeded what was in the resolution."
- Michon Lindstrom, senior director of communications for Georgia's secretary of state, said: "It's unfortunate that the state election board sought to inject chaos in the 11th hour of the election."
- In 2020, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger rebuffed Trump's efforts to overturn Georgia's presidential election results.
Friction point: Georgia has spent years debating how to address vulnerabilities in its voting system.
- The secretary of state's office said Georgia's machines haven't been updated since they were purchased in 2019. The state said it's starting a procurement process for new machines for the next election cycle.
- The state's legislature passed a law in 2024 to move away from a QR-code ballot system to hand-marked paper ballots. This transition was supposed to be implemented by this July, but lawmakers passed a deadline extension.
- A software glitch on the state's tabulators that could impact ballot secrecy has been known to the state since 2022. But an available fix hasn't been installed.
Between the lines: "There are no clean hands in this," the Georgia election official told Axios. "The secretary of state could have fought harder for the funding... [The] legislature could have funded it when the secretary of state asked for it. But ... they all have pissed each other off so much."
- In 2025, Raffensperger urged lawmakers to reconsider a $47 million voting-machine upgrade, proposing a software update costing less than $15 million or delaying any purchases until the existing contract expired.
- In 2026, Raffensperger told legislators that there wasn't money for any election upgrades. No upgrades were funded.
What they're saying: "Money allocation is ultimately the function of the legislative branch, and any questions about why they did not deem it necessary to fund 'election infrastructure improvements' should be directed to the legislature," Lindstrom told Axios.
- Fevrier told Axios: "I blame the legislature. If the legislature thought it was an issue, they would have fixed it, and they didn't."
- The Department of Homeland Security didn't respond to Axios's request for comment.
The bottom line: The Trump administration suffered a setback in California on Friday, with an appeals court rejecting its demand to set aside mail-in ballots. But the dispute in Georgia shows that the fight over federal intervention in state elections is far from over.
