The DeKalb County Republican Party has filed a lawsuit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger alleging that the encryption keys for the software used in the state’s Dominion Voting System are not stored securely. 

The DeKalb GOP wants the Secretary of State’s Office to properly store the encryption keys and “immediately bring the Dominion systems used in Georgia elections into compliance with Georgia law.” The lawsuit alleges that the state’s Dominion system software has been in an “illegal and insecure state since at least 2020,” and that the Secretary of State’s Office has known this since March, 2024. 

The DeKalb GOP also wants the Secretary of State’s office to make the Dominion system logs, cast-vote records and ballot images available to itself and the public for inspection within 24 hours of polls closing on Nov. 5. 

The lawsuit, filed Aug. 30 in Fulton County Superior Court, was announced by the DeKalb  Republican Party on X on Monday. A hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 30. 

A spokesperson for the DeKalb GOP did not respond to a request for comment. The Secretary of State’s office declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. 

Recycled claims

Kristin Nabers, the Georgia director for All Voting is Local, a voting rights advocacy group, said the lawsuit is a smokescreen to undermine public confidence in Georgia elections. 

“Every piece of voting equipment in Georgia, including the machines, but also the printers and the scanners, go through extensive logic and accuracy testing before each election,” Nabers said.  

She added that Georgia requires risk-limiting audits after an election to ensure the counts are accurate. That means county elections offices “would know immediately if there had been a vulnerability,” she said.

“Every single time, these counts have confirmed that Georgia’s voting equipment cast and counted votes accurately,” Nabers said.

“This really feels like yet another effort by those who are seeking to push disinformation and lies about our elections,” she added. “These are people who want to undermine public trust and confidence in our election equipment and, frankly, in the hard working people who run our elections.”

Earlier Dominion lawsuit

The DeKalb GOP’s new lawsuit echoes claims that the state’s Dominion voting machines are not secure from a longrunning federal lawsuit, Curling v. Raffensperger, that was brought in 2017 by an election security watchdog group, Coalition for Good Governance, and a handful of Georgia voters. 

After a three-week bench trial in January, that lawsuit awaits a ruling from U.S. Northern District of Georgia Judge Amy Totenberg. 

Marilyn Marks, the executive director for the Coalition for Good Governance, told Atlanta Civic Circle that this lawsuit, like her group’s draws attention to “unresolved security vulnerabilities in the state’s current voting system.”

But, she said the related DeKalb GOP lawsuit in Fulton Superior Court has a clear objective. “The plaintiffs are sending a clear signal: Their candidates and members are gearing up for potential challenges to the election results,” she said.

The case was assigned to Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is also overseeing the state RICO case alleging interference in the 2020 presidential election against former President Donald Trump and multiple co-defendants.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Judge Scott McAfee had filed a motion to recuse himself from this case, he has not as of publication, he did recuse himself from a separate matter. Atlanta Civic Circle apologizes for the confusion.

Alessandro is an award-winning reporter who before calling Atlanta home worked in Cambodia and Florida. There he covered human rights, the environment, criminal justice as well as arts and culture.