Done In By A Deadline

This story — the first in a two-part series on alleged voter suppression in Georgia — was reported in partnership with APM Reports.

They knew it was going to be close. In 2018, Republican congressman Rob Woodall was running for reelection in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, a once reliably conservative slice of suburban Atlanta that was quickly changing. A growing number of middle-class African Americans, Asians and Latinos, who typically favor Democrats, had moved into the district in recent years, and the race between Woodall and his Democratic challenger, Carolyn Bourdeaux, was increasingly viewed as a toss-up. In the end, Woodall won by just 433 votes, or 0.15 percent — the closest House race in the country.

What concerned many Democrats were the votes that hadn’t been counted. They viewed Gwinnett County, which makes up a majority of the district, with suspicion because Republicans had managed to maintain power despite an increasingly diverse electorate. In the weeks before the election, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story dubbed the county “ground zero in the fight over alleged voter suppression in Georgia.”