On Friday, a judge ordered another Republican primary election for House District 28. Senior Judge David Sweat issued his ruling after four full days of testimony in court on a lawsuit filed by former State Rep. Dan Gasaway.
Battle-tested
Following the hearing Gasaway said he’s pleased with the judge’s ruling and is ready for another tough campaign.
“Well, I’ve won, prior to all this episode, four of the most contentious and hard-fought elections in the history of Northeast Georgia, so, I battle-tested for a long time,” Gasaway said after the hearing. “This is an unusual circumstance but hard campaigns are something I’ve had to experience from the beginning.”
This marks the second time Judge Sweat has ordered a redo of the May 22, 2018 District 28 Republican primary. The special primary election in December was ordered after the first lawsuit Gasaway filed. As a result of that suit, it was revealed that hundreds of Habersham County voters were assigned to the wrong State House districts. Those mis-assignments may never have come to light otherwise. Still, despite his two lawsuits and the voting errors that were found, the former three-term incumbent says he does not think voting problems are rampant in Georgia.
“I’m not convinced that we have catastrophic problems in Georgia. I just believe we have a few problems here and a few problems in other areas that need to be corrected and I think we’re on the right track to do that and Secretary of State Raffensperger has committed to doing that.”
Gasaway tells Now Habersham he turned down an invitation to appear in an election reform ad with former Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams. Habersham County Commissioner Natalie Crawford appeared in the video instead. Crawford has taken a lot of heat for that decision but she stands by it, insisting election reform is a bi-partisan issue that affects all Georgians.
