Albany Herald | Georgia High court clears Baker County Sheriff

Challenger Tommy Williamson had argued before a trial court in Baker County that there were voting irregularities that could cast the results of the 2012 Baker County Sheriff’s runoff race into question, invalidating Meade’s 39-vote margin of victory. Williamson had beat Meade with a 10 percent margin of victory in the Democratic primary, but neither candidate managed to get the 50 percent-plus-one-vote needed to avoid a runoff.

While a trial court sided with Williamson and ordered a new runoff election, Meade appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court. Monday, the Supreme Court disagreed with the lower court’s ruling invalidating the runoff election results.

“In the case now before us, evidence of systemic misconduct for vote buying and alleged wrongful distribution of absentee ballots is largely speculative and is insufficient to support the trial court’s conclusion that irregularities in the election process were shown to cast doubt upon the results,” the opinion says.

“Because Williamson failed to carry the burden of demonstrating the election results should be invalidated either by establishing a sufficient number of specific irregular or invalid votes to change or place in doubt the results, or by establishing sufficient irregularities in the election process to cast doubt upon the result, we reverse the trial court’s order invalidating the election results.”

via Albany Herald | Georgia High court clears Baker County Sheriff.