The nominees are Julie Adams, who refused to certify Fulton County’s 2024 primary results, and Jason Frazier, who challenged nearly 10,000 voter registrations in 2023. A county review found that the vast majority of the challenged registrations were legitimate and uncovered no illegal voting.

Justin Gunter, representing the Fulton County Republican Party, argued that state law requires commissioners to accept party nominees who meet minimum qualifications. He said rejecting the nominees threatens Georgia’s longstanding system of bipartisan election boards.

The county’s lawyer, Don Samuel, argued that commissioners retain discretion to reject nominees. The dispute follows a county commission decision last year to turn down Adams and Frazier, and conflicting rulings in the case: a lower-court judge ordered the county to approve the nominees, while the Georgia Court of Appeals sided with the county’s authority to reject them.

Adams’s refusal to certify election results also became a point of contention. She said she needed more detailed review before certifying; judges later ruled that certification was required and was not a matter of a board member’s discretion.

The case arrives amid heightened political disputes over election administration in Georgia, where false claims of widespread fraud after the 2020 election helped make local election boards a focus of partisan conflict. The state Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision by the end of March. Its ruling could clarify how much control county officials have over who serves on election boards, with implications for public oversight and confidence in local election administration.