Georgia Republican Burt Jones and his allies continue to slam his opponent over elections

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, is attacking his primary opponent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over the 2020 election again, this time wielding his legislative powers.

State senators on Thursday slammed Raffensperger for not complying with a U.S. Department of Justice request for detailed voter data that includes names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Raffensperger has said that would violate state law and infringe on Georgians’ privacy. He did not attend the meeting, citing active litigation. Georgia is among 23 states the Justice Department has sued to get that information.

But Jones emphasized an incorrect claim that there were 315,000 wrongly certified Fulton County ballots from 2020 when he demanded Raffensperger appear at the Senate Ethics Committee meeting. That appeared to be an attempt to galvanize Jones' right-wing supporters. Jones is a close ally of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly and falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Spotlighting the 2020 election baffled some Republicans who say most Georgians have moved on.

Ricky Hess, chair of north Georgia’s Paulding County Republicans, said in a text that voters care about election transparency but are “ready to move on from relitigating 2020” and are more worried about affordability, education and public safety.

“Candidates who make 2020 the centerpiece risk sounding stuck,” Hess wrote. “Candidates who talk about practical steps that build confidence and then focus on today’s issues will connect with more people.”

In a January 2021 phone call, the president pressured Raffensperger to help “find” enough votes to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in the state’s 2020 presidential election.

Jones already has Trump’s endorsement and the support of election skeptics, said Jason Shepherd, a Republican in Georgia who resigned from party office over disagreements with Trump supporters. It’s the rest of the voters he needs to win over, and Shepherd said most trust that Georgia’s elections are secure.

Jones was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who declared themselves electors in 2020 even though Biden had won the state. He also backed a call for a special session to declare Trump the winner. Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, Jones’ top rivals for the Republican nomination, spurned Trump’s efforts. Raffensperger and Carr will appeal to more moderate Republicans, but Raffensperger is expected to pull ahead of Carr.

Outcry over the false claim that the Fulton County ballots were wrongly certified went viral in right-wing media last year. In announcing the Ethics Committee meeting, Jones said Fulton County admitted that “315,000 ballots were not properly signed by poll workers." Ballots in Georgia are never signed. It was the tabulator tapes from scanners used to count votes during early in-person voting for the 2020 general election that poll workers failed to sign, Ann Brumbaugh, an attorney for the county, acknowledged during a State Election Board meeting last month.

She added the county has new leadership overseeing elections and implemented new training and procedures for checking tabulator tapes.

Raffensperger called what happened a “clerical error.” The Brennan Center’s director of elections and security Gowri Ramachandran agreed with that assessment. Signing tabulation tapes is not how votes get counted, and the error doesn’t invalidate election results, she said.

“There is nothing in the election code overturning it for not following a procedural rule, especially invalidating every single early vote cast in Georgia’s largest county,” said a spokesperson for Raffensperger.

Jones said in the announcement that Raffensperger’s office needs oversight.

“I will not allow the Secretary and his allies in the press to let him escape accountability by downplaying this utter failure as a mere ‘clerical error,’” Jones said.

During his campaign, Raffensperger has said Georgia’s elections are nationally recognized as secure. In a letter to the Ethics Committee's chairman, Raffensperger's office said they provided the DOJ with Georgia's voter list and complied to the extent that Georgia law allows. His office filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit Wednesday.

“If you and your colleagues wish to weaken the legal protections for Georgia voters’ private information and make millions of Georgians vulnerable to identity theft, you can certainly change the law, but that is not something that the Secretary of State’s office would support,” the letter says.

At the meeting, Republican state Sen. Randy Roberston, who filed the resolution, argued Raffensperger could legally share the information.

“He continuously fails to show up and answer the questions and that is the absolute truth,” said Robertson.

Since Trump often laments the 2020 election with a focus on Fulton County, where he was indicted over attempts to overturn the results, it’s not surprising that Jones wants to keep it on voters’ radar, said Georgia State University political science professor Dr. Jennifer McCoy. However, Jones will have to appeal to a broad swath of voters in the general election.

State GOP Chairman Josh McKoon said election security is a “key concern” among Republican primary voters and candidates will continue to talk about it.

Shepherd said he’s surprised that a “bureaucratic error” is galvanizing the party’s MAGA wing as much as it is. Garland Favorito, a conservative activist known for espousing conspiracy theories and challenging the state’s 2020 results, said Fulton County’s error is just one example of what he describes as Raffensperger’s lack of transparency.

Republicans like Jones “think that if they can win all the straw polls at the Republican Party barbecues, they’ll probably win the nomination, when typically speaking, it’s the opposite,” said Shepherd.

Associated Press writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

FILE - Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones speaks about Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign event at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Oct. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger participates in an election forum, Sept. 19, 2024, in Ann Arbor, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement has highlighted the detention of people whom it called some of Maine’s most dangerous criminals during operations this past week, but court records paint a more complicated picture.

Federal officials say more than 100 people have been detained statewide in what ICE dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day,” a reference to the fishing industry. ICE said in a statement that it was arresting the “worst of the worst,” including “child abusers and hostage takers.”

Court records show some were violent felons. But they also show other detainees with unresolved immigration proceedings or who were arrested but never convicted of a crime.

Immigration attorneys and local officials say similar concerns have surfaced in other cities where ICE has conducted enforcement surges and many of those targeted lacked criminal records.

One case highlighted by ICE that involves serious felony offenses and criminal convictions is that of Sudan native Dominic Ali. ICE said Ali was convicted of false imprisonment, aggravated assault, assault, obstructing justice and violating a protective order.

Court records show Ali was convicted in 2004 of violating a protective order and in 2008 of second-degree assault, false imprisonment and obstructing the reporting of a crime. In the latter case, prosecutors said he threw his girlfriend to the floor of her New Hampshire apartment, kicked her and broke her collarbone.

“His conduct amounted to nothing less than torture,” Judge James Barry said in 2009 before sentencing Ali to five to 10 years in prison.

Ali was later paroled to ICE custody, and in 2013 an immigration judge ordered his removal. No further information was available from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and it remains unclear what happened after that order.

Other cases were more nuanced, like that of Elmara Correia, an Angola native whom ICE highlighted in its public promotion of the operation, saying she was “arrested previously for endangering the welfare of a child.”

Maine court records show someone with that name was charged in 2023 with violating a law related to learner’s permits for new drivers, a case that was later dismissed.

Correia filed a petition Wednesday challenging her detention, and a judge issued a temporary emergency order barring authorities from transferring her from Massachusetts, where she is being held. Her attorney said she entered the United States legally on a student visa about eight years ago and has never been subject to expedited removal proceedings.

“Was she found not guilty, or are we just going to be satisfied that she was arrested?” Portland Mayor Mark Dion said during a news conference in which he raised concerns that ICE failed to distinguish between arrests and convictions or explain whether sentences were served.

Dion also pointed to another person named in the release: Dany Lopez-Cortez, whom ICE said is a “criminal illegal alien” from Guatemala who was convicted of operating under the influence.

ICE highlighted Lopez-Cortez’s case among a small group of examples it said reflected the types of arrests made during the operation. Dion questioned whether an operating-under-the-influence conviction, a serious offense but one commonly seen in Maine, should rise to the level of ICE’s “worst of the worst” public narrative.

Boston immigration attorney Caitlyn Burgess said her office filed habeas petitions Thursday on behalf of four clients who were detained in Maine and transferred to Massachusetts.

The most serious charge any of them faced was driving without a license, Burgess said, and all had pending immigration court cases or applications.

“Habeas petitions are often the only tool available to stop rapid transfers that sever access to counsel and disrupt pending immigration proceedings,” she said.

Attorney Samantha McHugh said she filed five habeas petitions on behalf of Maine detainees Thursday and expected to file three more soon.

“None of these individuals have any criminal record,” said McHugh, who is representing a total of eight detainees. “They were simply at work, eating lunch, when unmarked vehicles arrived and immigration agents trespassed on private property to detain them.”

Federal court records show that immigration cases involving criminal convictions can remain unresolved or be revisited years later.

Another whose mug shot was included in materials on “the worst of the worst” of those detained in Maine is Ambessa Berhe.

Berhe was convicted of cocaine possession and assaulting a police officer in 1996 and cocaine possession in 2003.

In 2006 a federal appeals court in Boston vacated a removal order for him and sent the case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals for further consideration.

According to the ruling, Berhe was born in Ethiopia and later taken to Sudan by his adoptive parents. The family was admitted to the United States as refugees in 1987, when he was about 9.

ICE has said the operation is targeting about 1,400 immigrants in a state of about 1.4 million people, roughly 4% of whom are foreign-born.

Associated Press journalist Rodrique Ngowi contributed.

A protester holds a "Resist" flag in front of federal court in Portland, Maine as Immigration and Customs Enforcement conduct operations in the state, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

Mayor Mark Dion speaks at a news conference about ICE activity Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle)

Rosie Grutze protests the presence of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Anti-ICE sentiment is expressed on a traffic sign, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Biddeford, Maine.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Protesters rally against the presence of U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement in Maine, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)