The lawsuit, filed in a federal district court in Atlanta, demanded that Fulton County turn over “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files,” from the 2020 election. It also accuses Fulton County Clerk Ché Alexander of violating federal laws for refusing to relinquish the records.

In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said the records were needed to protect U.S. citizens from “vote dilution.”

Trump has long claimed — without evidence — that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia and other swing states, blaming his loss on unfounded accusations of rampant voting fraud, even though two recounts affirmed former President Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. In an interview with POLITICO published earlier this week, Trump claimed that in the next few months, evidence would emerge to prove that 2020 was “a rigged election.”

Dhillon first requested Fulton County’s 2020 election records in October, following a subpoena over the same records issued by the State Election Board in 2024. In a letter to the Fulton County Board of Election, she argued that the records were needed to “ascertain Georgia’s compliance” with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

However, Alexander denied Dhillon’s request, according to the lawsuit, stating that the records were under seal and could not be released without a court order. Alexander did not immediately reply to a request for comment Friday.

Max Flugrath, communications director at the voting rights organization Fair Fight, said the Justice Department is “recycling conspiracy theories that’ve been disproven in court, in audits, and by independent experts.”

“They’re abusing federal power to manufacture a reason to restrict ballot access in 2026 and beyond,” he added.

The Justice Department also filed lawsuits against Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Nevada on Friday to compel the states to turn over their voter registration lists.

The Justice Department has requested voter data from 40 states and filed lawsuits against 18 states that refused to provide the records, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which is tracking the requests. Officials told Stateline that the records will be shared with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in an effort to locate noncitizens on the voting rolls.

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Eric Gisler, a tech executive and small business owner, took the lead in the Athens-area district with 50.85% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s office. Republican candidate Mack “Dutch” Guest IV was nearly 200 votes behind, with 49.15% of the vote.

And in metro Atlanta, two candidates vying for an open House seat are headed to a runoff after no one managed to clear the 50% threshold required to win a seat outright in the six-way contest. Republican Bill Fincher and Democrat Scott Sanders advanced to a Jan. 6 runoff. 

The two races are the latest in a series of off-year special elections for state legislative seats in Georgia to replace lawmakers who have died, resigned, or been appointed to other political offices. 

Here are the results from Tuesday’s elections.

House District 121

Progressive voters had cause for celebration in the race for House District 121: Gisler gained a narrow lead over Guest, the Republican candidate, late Tuesday night. 

The conservative-leaning district, which covers parts of Clarke and Oconee counties, has been under Republican control since 2019. However, former state Rep. Marcus Wiedower, a Watkinsville Republican, abruptly resigned from his seat earlier this year to focus on his work as vice president of external affairs at the real estate firm Hillpointe. 

Gisler, who made affordability a key focus of this year’s campaign, previously challenged Wiedower in 2024, but received less than 40% of the vote. This year, he credited his campaign’s success to a strong ground game, as well as his focus on issues like health care access and the rising cost of living, which he said likely appealed to some Republican voters.

“We had the right message in this time,” Gisler said in a phone call, adding that his opponent “ran on tired MAGA talking points.”

Guest, an Oconee County resident who helps run a Watkinsville-based transportation business, centered his campaign around protecting conservative values, as well as improving transportation, strengthening education and keeping communities safe. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.

Ken Martin, who chairs the Democratic National Committee, celebrated Gisler’s win, drawing comparisons to the party’s historic November victory, in which Democrats flipped two seats on the state’s Public Service Commission – wins that Georgia Democrats had said earlier helped to lift their hopes in the legislative race.

“Fresh off the resounding victories in the Georgia Public Service Commissioner races and now this historic flip, the DNC will continue to invest, organize, and compete in every corner of Georgia,” he said in a statement.

House District 23

A second special election over a metro Atlanta seat was less decisive. Republican Bill Fincher and Democrat Scott Sanders will be advancing to a runoff election after each candidate received about a quarter of the vote during Tuesday’s election, according to unofficial results. Georgia law requires a runoff election when no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote.

Fincher, a Republican former district attorney who now owns an RV park, finished with the most votes at 1,373, good for 27.4% of the vote, while Scott Sanders, a business executive, got 1,340 votes, or about 26.7%. The remaining votes were divided among four other Republican candidates.

Republican state Rep. Mandi Ballinger of Canton died in October after a long battle with cancer, leaving her seat open. The district, which includes Canton, part of northern Holly Springs and the surrounding unincorporated areas, heavily favors a Republican.

In a phone call, Fincher said he chalked up his first-place finish to his team connecting directly with voters, and he thanked his opponents and asked for their support for the coming runoff.

“Our biggest strength was teamwork, communication directly with the voters, and with the quality of people that ran, all the candidates, top-notch people trying to do their best, all being positive, all dignified. And when you run a race like that, there’s mutual respect among every one of us,” Fincher said. 

Sanders said his second-place finish “shows there’s Democrats up here in Cherokee County.” 

“We went into this eyes wide open, knowing how red the district was,” he said. “It was a district that Trump won by 45 points, so we knew it was going to be an uphill battle, but we also intended to take this seriously and make it a hard-fought campaign, and we did.”

Sanders said he would not have made it to the runoff without his team of volunteers, who knocked on nearly 2,000 doors in three weeks in order to get out the vote.

With the runoff set for Jan. 6 – less than a month away, with most of that right in the middle of holiday season when people are more concerned with travel and celebrations than politics – both remaining candidates said they will work hard to keep up the momentum.

The runoff may receive more attention after Gisler’s upset win. 

“Georgia Republicans, we need to sound the alarm from now until November, starting with helping Bill Fincher win the runoff for HD 23,” Republican Insurance Commissioner John King, who is up for reelection next year, posted on social media. “Our donors aren’t motivated and our voters aren’t either.” 

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A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee voted to eliminate a recommendation that all newborn babies receive a vaccine against hepatitis B, ending a policy that has been in place since 1991 to protect Americans against an incurable liver disease that can lead to cirrhosis, cancer and liver failure.

The current three-dose series for hepatitis B includes one vaccine administered to infants within 24 hours of birth, and subsequent booster shots given one month and six months after the initial dose. There was a 99% drop in serious infections among children between 1990 and 2019, which is attributed to the universal vaccination policy.

The agency will leave in place a recommendation that babies born to mothers who test positive for hepatitis B receive a vaccine at birth. However, the new guidelines leave the decision in all other cases to “individual-based decision-making.” They also suggest that parents delay the first dose of the vaccine for at least two months after birth.

Friday’s decision comes after an 8-3 vote from a key CDC advisory committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is charged with setting national guidelines around which people should be vaccinated against a wide range of preventable diseases and when those vaccines should be administered. The recommendations play a key role in determining which vaccines insurance companies are willing to cover and how accessible those immunizations are to the public.

Retsef Levi, an ACIP member and professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called the updated recommendation a “very positive change in policy.” arguing that blanket vaccine recommendations force newborns to serve as “a safety net for adults’ mistakes.”

But Dr. Cody Meissner, another member of the committee who also serves as a professor of pediatrics and medicine at Dartmouth College, argued that there was no scientific evidence to support the changes implemented by the panel.

“Thoughtful inquiry is always commendable,” he told the committee. “But that inquiry should not be confused with baseless skepticism, which is what I think we’re encountering here.”

The updated recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine mirrors COVID-19 vaccine guidelines passed by the same panel in September, which places new emphasis on the risks of immunizations, though the CDC’s own data shows that the vaccines are safe and effective for most people. As with the new COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, the updated hepatitis B guidelines will not take effect until being officially signed off by the CDC director.

A second vote, which passed 6-4, encourages parents to discuss using serology testing, a type of blood test that measures antibodies to gauge how well a patient’s immune system has responded to a disease, before allowing their children to receive additional doses of the hepatitis B vaccine.

The changed recommendations will not prevent doctors from administering hepatitis B vaccines to newborns, but may impact which insurance companies are willing to pay for the immunizations. Children enrolled in Medicaid or the Vaccines for Children program, which provides free immunizations to children who are uninsured or underinsured, will continue to be eligible for hepatitis B vaccines at birth under the new recommendations, according to program liaisons.

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Georgia’s state Capitol in Atlanta underwent its annual winter transformation last week, with some workers hanging wreaths around the building’s numerous lampposts, and others attending to the monumental task of installing the Capitol Christmas tree.

The tree will eventually be decked out with over 35,000 lights, and ceremonially illuminated during the annual tree-lighting ceremony with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. But the process of installing the tree takes a coordinated effort from a number of Santa’s helpers — along with more than a few hardworking Georgians.

This year’s tree, which is sitting in the rotunda at the state Capitol, measures a whopping 26 feet tall. According to the Georgia Building Authority, it is an eastern red cedar that was donated by a resident of Lindale, which sits about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta. 

Taylor Willingham, a chief ranger at the Georgia Forestry Commission, has helped with the process of transporting the Capitol Christmas tree for the past several years. He said harvesting the tree is typically a three-hour process that begins early in the morning and requires the combined efforts of the Georgia Forestry Commission, the Georgia Building Authority and Georgia State Patrol. 

The process, he said, “is fairly intricate, because you definitely want to deliver a beautiful Christmas tree for everyone to see.”

Once the chosen tree is loaded onto a truck from the Georgia Forestry Commission, it begins the long journey to the heart of Atlanta, with members of the Georgia State Patrol leading the way and the Georgia Building Authority bringing up the rear. This part of the trip, Willingham said, can be precarious at times.

“You have to be extra careful with the tree so it doesn’t catch on signs or anything as you travel,” he said.

Under the Gold Dome

But it is also among the most memorable parts of each year’s sojourn to the Capitol, as Georgia residents get the chance to catch glimpses of the tree’s journey.

“You can see the excitement in people’s eyes,” Willingham said. “You can see how people just light up when they realize what’s going on.”

Workers use a crane to lift the tree inside the building, then stand it upright and secure it to the third-floor balconies.

A tree lighting ceremony will be held in December, though the exact date has not yet been announced.

Chuck Berry, the owner of Berry’s Tree Farm and the president of the Georgia Christmas Tree Association, said a Georgia-grown red cedar is a natural choice for a place like the state Capitol.

“To me, the red cedar is a traditional Christmas tree,” he said. “It’s what most people, years ago, grew up with.”

Georgia grown

However, he added, commercial Christmas tree farms tend to favor faster-growing cypress trees over cedars, so Georgia residents may be unlikely to find one at their nearest tree farm. 

For families who are shopping for a tree this year, the Georgia Department of Agriculture recently published a map of Georgia-grown Christmas trees that includes nearly 100 farms across the state. 

“The advantage of a Christmas tree farm is you actually get to know when [the tree] was cut, so there’s no question as to how fresh it is,” Berry said. “Most Christmas tree farms in the state now offer activities for families and children, so you’re not necessarily just getting a Christmas tree, you’re actually building memories.”

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Two candidates vying to replace former state Sen. Jason Esteves to represent a metro Atlanta Senate seat are headed to a runoff election next month after neither candidate managed to secure more than 50% of the vote in a six-way special election held Tuesday. 

Esteves, an Atlanta Democrat, resigned from the state Senate in September to focus on his campaign for governor.

Former Cobb County School Board member Jaha Howard and retired state Rep. Roger Bruce will be advancing to the runoff after receiving 33% and 25% of the vote, respectively, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office. Senate District 35 includes portions of Cobb and Fulton counties.

Over 5,000 voters showed up to cast their ballot for Howard, a dentist and Smyrna resident who centered his campaign around supporting small businesses, eliminating obstacles to health care access and reducing energy costs.

Howard has also been a candidate for state school superintendent, and ran for a seat on the Cobb County commission earlier this year, finishing second in the Democratic primary. 

He previously ran for state Senate in 2017, but came under fire after sexist and homophobic comments he posted on Facebook between 2011 and 2014 were unearthed. He later apologized for the comments, and eventually lost that race to attorney Jen Jordan. 

In this year’s race, he received an endorsement from state Sen. RaShaun Kemp, one of the two openly gay lawmakers in the chamber.

Howard did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment Wednesday.

Ahead of the special election, much of the Democratic establishment coalesced behind Bruce, who was first sworn in as a state representative in 2003 and served for 22 years, until his retirement in 2024. Bruce said earlier that he was inspired to return to politics because of the political climate in Washington. 

In an interview Wednesday, Bruce said his tenure at the state Capitol proves he has a record as an effective legislator, and helped drum up enthusiasm among his former constituents in Fulton County. However, he acknowledged that his campaign has work to do ahead of the runoff.

“I was known in Fulton County for the work that l’ve done, and we won overwhelmingly in Fulton County,” said Bruce, whose House district has spanned portions of Fulton, Douglas and Cobb counties during his time as a representative. “I was not as known in Cobb County.”

“Now we’ve just got to spend more time making sure people get to know my history,” he added.

Other candidates in the race included Democrats Erica-Denise Solomon and John Williams, Republican Josh Tolbert, and Corenza Morris, who ran as an independent.

Howard and Bruce will face off again during a runoff election held on Dec. 16. Early voting for the runoff will begin on Dec. 1.

Early voting for the special election partially overlapped with statewide races for the Public Service Commission, prompting the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration to request that the date be moved to coincide with the PSC election. However, Gov. Brian Kemp denied the request in a Sept. 26 letter, arguing that changing the date would shorten the time for candidates to campaign. Critics of Kemp’s decision saw the move as a strategy to avoid boosting turnout in a left-leaning area. 

Two Democrats running for the commission ending up winning in a landslide this month, thanks in part to coinciding local races in metro Atlanta.

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