GEORGIA: Court Tosses GOP Lawsuit Demanding Signature Verification For January 5 Runoff: As usual, district court found the complainants lacked standing.

A lawsuit filed by Republicans seeking stronger, more uniform signature matching for the January 5, 2021, US Senate run-off elections has been dismissed by a District Court of Appeals court in Georgia. The district court found the complainants lacked standing. This prompted an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

The Georgia Republican Party was joined by US Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and David Perdue (R-GA), in a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The suit claimed that signature matching for mail-in ballots, as executed in the November 3, 2020, General Election was “unconstitutional, arbitrary, and inconsistent.”

The three-judge panel – consisting of Clinton nominee Charles Wilson, Obama nominee Beverly Martin, and Trump nominee Robert Luck, ruled Sunday that the plaintiffs did not adequately allege an injury that can be addressed to establish standing.

“Like in Jacobson, the campaigns sued the Secretary of State,” the panel wrote in its dismissal. “They alleged that the Secretary is the state’s chief election officer, that he has the authority and responsibility to manage Georgia’s electoral system, and that he, along with the election board members, has the duty to promulgate rules and regulations to obtain uniformity in the practices of election officials and to ensure a fair, legal, and orderly conduction of elections.”

“Jacobson” refers to Jacobson v. Florida Secretary of State, a precedent-setting case in the matter.

“But, just as in Jacobson, the absentee ballot statute puts the duty to ‘compare the signature’ and accept or reject a ballot on the ‘registrar or clerk’ – not the secretary of state.”

The judges explained that the motion for injunction before them asked them to do what they already stated they couldn’t do in the previous case, “order a nonparty county official to do something contrary to state law.”

The question that begs to be asked is this. Did the Georgia GOP and lawyers for Loeffler and Purdue do their due diligence in seeking the correct relief from the right litigant?

A lawsuit filed by Republicans seeking stronger, more uniform signature matching for the January 5, 2021, US Senate run-off elections has been dismissed by a District Court of Appeals court in Georgia. The district court found the complainants lacked standing. This prompted an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
The Georgia Republican Party was joined by US Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and David Perdue (R-GA), in a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The suit claimed that signature matching for mail-in ballots, as executed in the November 3, 2020, General Election was “unconstitutional, arbitrary, and inconsistent.”
The three-judge panel – consisting of Clinton nominee Charles Wilson, Obama nominee Beverly Martin, and Trump nominee Robert Luck, ruled Sunday that the plaintiffs did not adequately allege an injury that can be addressed to establish standing.

There is no "District Court of Appeal court." There is the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and there is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

It was not a lawsuit at the 11th Circuit and it was not joined by Senators Loeffler and Perdue. It was a Motion for a Stay or Injunction Pending Appeal and Emergency Motion to Expedite.

In the original lawsuit in the District Court for Georgia, Northern District, a lawsuit was brought by CORPORATE Plaintiffs, (1) Georgia Republican Party, Inc., (2) National Republican Senatorial Committee, (3) Perdue for Senate, and (3) Georgians for Kelly Loeffler. Those are four corporate entities. The Loeffler and Perdue campaign corporate entities were parties, not Loeffler and Perdue personally.

https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2020/12/GRP-v-Raffensperger-11th-Circuit-Motion-for-Stay.pdf

No. 20-14741
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
______________________
GEORGIA REPUBLICAN PARTY, INC., et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
BRAD RAFFENSPERGER,
in his official capacity as Secretary of State of Georgia, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
______________________
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA,
ATLANTA DIVISION (1:20-cv-05018-ELR)
______________________
APPELLANTS’ EMERGENCY MOTION FOR A STAY OR
INJUNCTION PENDING APPEAL AND
EMERGENCY MOTION TO EXPEDITE

The Courts found that the campaigns lacked standing.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20433082/georgia-appeals-order.pdf

The 11th Circuit observed at 3:

Finding that the Campaigns lacked standing, the district court denied their motion for an injunction and dismissed their complaint. The Campaigns then appealed, filing an emergency motion to expedite and a motion for stay or injunction. The Campaigns’ emergency motion to expedite is GRANTED, and we now address the motion for stay or injunction.

The 11th Circuit stated at 4-5:

III.
We recently addressed traceability and redressability in the election-law context in Jacobson v. Florida Secretary of State, 974 F.3d 1236 (11th Cir. 2020). In Jacobson, we considered Florida statutes that delegated the county supervisors of elections the responsibility of printing ballots and putting the names of candidates in their proper places as required by law. Id. at 1253. The Secretary of State had the duty of giving the list of nominated candidates to the supervisor, but otherwise had no authority over the placement of the candidates’ names. Id. The plaintiffs—Democratic voters and organizations—sued the Secretary of State, alleging injury because Republican candidates appeared first on Florida election ballots. Id. But because an injury must be “fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party,” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, we found that any injury from ballot name order could not be traced to the Secretary. Jacobson, 974 F.3d at 1269. That is, because the Secretary could not decide the order that candidates were listed on the ballots, he could not redress the plaintiffs’ alleged injury. Id. Only the supervisors, independent actors who were not subject to the Secretary’s control and not parties to the lawsuit, maintained such authority. Id. Therefore, the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring their claims. Id.
Here, as in Jacobson, the Campaigns did not sufficiently allege a redressable injury to establish standing. Like in Jacobson, the Campaigns sued the Secretary of State. They alleged that the Secretary is the state’s chief election officer, that he has the authority and responsibility to manage Georgia’s electoral system, and that he, along with the election board members, has the duty to promulgate rules and regulations to obtain uniformity in the practices of election officials and to ensure a fair, legal, and orderly conduction of elections. But, just as in Jacobson, the absentee ballot statute puts the duty to “compare the signature” and accept or reject a ballot on the “registrar or clerk”—not the Secretary of State.
Other than being the chief election officer responsible for election laws, there is no allegation that the Secretary controls the local supervisors or has control over the signature verification process. While the Secretary has rulemaking authority, as in Jacobson, this power is limited to rules and regulations that are “consistent with law.” O.C.G.A. § 21-2-31(2). And the law gives the authority to conduct the signature-verification process to local supervisors, not the Secretary. Id. § 21-2-386(a)(1)(B).
The Campaigns’ motion for injunction asks us to do what we said could not be done in Jacobson: order a nonparty county official to do something contrary to state law. Since the Secretary and the election board do not conduct the signature matching process, are not the election officials that review the voter’s signature, and do not control whether the signature matching process can be observed, the Campaigns’ alleged injury is not traceable to the Secretary. And the Secretary does not have the authority to redress it. Further, to the extent the requested injunction sought to enjoin parties other than the Secretary and election board, that would exceed our authority because these other parties were not before the district court and are not before us.
IV.
The Campaigns have failed to make a strong showing that they have standing to bring their constitutional claims because they have failed to demonstrate that any alleged injury is traceable to, and redressable by, the State. Accordingly, the Campaigns’ emergency motion for a stay or injunction pending appeal is DENIED.

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