Georgia Lt. Gov.-elect Burt Jones Thursday on Newsmax pushed back at a lawsuit filed by state Democrats and Sen. Raphael Warnock that claims early voting for the runoff election for the U.S. Senate should be allowed to start on Nov. 26, even if falls after a state holiday, saying cutting off the early voting weekend likely wasn't intentional.
"There have been multiple lawsuits saying that the Republicans are trying everything they can to prevent people from voting, trying to suppress the vote, and it's quite the opposite," the Georgia Republican said on Newsmax's "American Agenda." "This past election cycle we had a record turnout. Never in the history of the state of Georgia have more people voted not just in the primary, but also in the general election."
However, he acknowledged that when Georgia's voting-reform legislation was done, "there probably wasn't a lot of thought put into the actual time frame" for the weeks before a runoff election.
"It was a 90-something page bill at the time that we were focused on, trying to get everything right during the regular frame towards the primary and the general," said Jones. "There definitely was not an intent to try to eliminate the weekend vote. I think what probably happened was it was just an unfortunate situation we're in."
But still, there is early voting and Election Day, and as for the Thanksgiving weekend, "we wanted to let people have that day off," said Jones. "I really think that was an oversight."
Meanwhile, as for his own goals, Jones said he's focused on getting GOP nominee Herschel Walker elected over Warnock.
"I would love to see us take back one of the United States Senate seats, so I will focus on doing that," he said. "But when the session gets started, you know, I'm going to be focused on the things I campaigned on, improving our education system, getting law and order in the streets and improving our tax code."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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