Dolezal joins lawsuit challenging Georgia election night reporting room access

Forsyth County voters should not have to do anything differently because of Greg Dolezal’s latest court fight. The lawsuit targets access to the Secretary of State’s election-night reporting room, not ballot casting at polling places, and Georgia officials say votes are counted at the county level before statewide totals are published.

Dolezal, a Forsyth County state senator from Cumming who is also running for lieutenant governor, joined two other candidates in filing an emergency lawsuit Monday night in Fulton County Superior Court. The filing seeks a temporary restraining order, a writ of mandamus and immediate relief before Georgia’s primary, with the candidates asking a judge to force access for bipartisan observers and members of the Georgia State Election Board inside the Secretary of State’s Election Night Reporting Room, the emergency operations center critics call “the bunker.”

The dispute goes to the heart of how Georgia’s election system is seen, not how it functions. Raffensperger’s office says county election offices and tabulation centers handle the actual count, while the state operations center receives and publishes totals after counties report them. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office has said the Election Code does not appear to require the secretary to let State Election Board members attend election-night reporting activity.

The timing matters for Tuesday’s primary, where candidates must win more than 50% plus one vote to avoid a runoff. If no one clears that threshold, runoff elections are scheduled for June 16, 2026. Dolezal and other Republican figures have argued that observers from both parties should be allowed in the reporting room to watch results come in in real time, while State Election Board chair John Fervier had reportedly been told observers would not be admitted. Board member Salleigh Grubbs and other GOP figures have said the board has oversight responsibilities that justify access.

Raffensperger, who is running for governor, rejected the lawsuit and cast it as political theater. He said the real integrity work happens in county election offices and tabulation centers, not in the state operations center. He also said state inspectors were visiting about 600 polling locations on Election Day, more than 1 million Georgians had already voted early, and a University of Georgia poll found 84% of Georgians trust the state’s elections.

The case lands in a familiar Georgia fight over election control and public confidence, echoing the 2018 clash that followed Brian Kemp’s race for governor. For Forsyth voters heading into Tuesday, the practical answer remains simple: vote the same way, at the same place, under the same county-run process. The lawsuit is about who gets to watch the numbers, not whether residents’ ballots will still count.