Why some Georgia DAs are pushing back against state law removing candidates’ party affiliations from ballots

In the weeks leading up to the 2026 midterm elections, a claim circulated that Georgia lawmakers had removed political party labels from ballots in an effort to give Republicans a leg up in counties that have seen steady electoral wins for Democrats.

Social media posts sounded the alarm, warning Georgia voters to bring sample ballots or memorize candidates before heading to the polls to avoid voting for someone on the basis of name recognition alone.

“Georgia voters- It seems our Trump loving election denying Republican led election board has decided to remove the (R) and the (D) that normally appears next to candidate’s names on the upcoming midterm ballots. And you’re not allowed to use your phone while voting to look up affiliation,” an Oct. 4 Facebook post that was shared thousands of times read (archived). “They want you to either not vote in that category or hopefully choose the wrong one. A lot of incumbents are Republican so they’re hoping you’ll just choose by name recognition.”

We looked into the claim and found that while it was true Georgia Gov. Bill Kemp signed House Bill 369 into law in Georgia in May 2026, making several county-level races “nonpartisan,” the law would not take effect until Jan. 1, 2028 — and only in five Atlanta-area counties, not the entire state. As a result, we’ve rated the claim a mixture of true and false information.

The five counties’ district attorneys — all of whom are Black women representing the most diverse region of the state — argue the law is unconstitutional because it’s geographically limited to that region. Those counties include and surround state capital Atlanta, a Democratic stronghold.

HB 369 applies the nonpartisan distinction to counties in which the elected office of county coroner has been abolished. It’s unclear precisely how lawmakers made the connection between nonpartisan coroner elections and the need to remove party affiliation labels from other candidates’ names.

According to The Associated Press, state Sen. John Albers, a Republican from Roswell (an Atlanta suburb) said during a legislative session that he “believed it will promote public safety.” State Rep. Trey Kelley, also a Republican, reportedly claimed that “by passing this legislation, we’re giving voters the opportunity to rid themselves of district attorneys who are more concerned with playing partisan games than prosecuting and delivering justice.”

In June 2026, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced she was filing a lawsuit challenging the law. She was accompanied by three out of the other four county DAs. We reached out to all five DA offices for comment, and a spokesperson from Clayton County responded reiterating that if the bill held by 2028, it would only deal with certain elected officials.

A June 3 statement outlining the three grounds on which Boston’s lawsuit challenged the validity of the law read:

1. Violation of Georgia’s Uniformity Clause – The Georgia Constitution requires that laws must work the same way throughout the state and prohibits lawmakers from enacting local or special laws that change the rules for one area of Georgia.  The Georgia Supreme Court has repeatedly held that laws that target just one or a handful of counties are unconstitutional.
2. Violation of the Georgia and U.S. Equal Protection Clauses – Both the Georgia and United States Constitutions mandate that laws must protect all people equally. State lawmakers did not give any legitimate reason for treating the 5 metro counties, their elected officials, and their voters differently from the state’s other 154 counties.  They set them apart on the basis that they have medical examiners instead of coroners, which has no connection to the need for nonpartisan elections.  In addition, the five counties targeted have large Black voter populations and Black female District Attorneys.
3. Violation of Georgia’s Rejected Bills Clause – Before lawmakers passed the nonpartisan county elections bill as HB 369, the same proposal failed a full vote of the Senate as SB 573.  Before the Legislature can take up a measure it previously rejected, the Georgia Constitution requires a two-thirds vote by the rejecting chamber.  That did not happen with HB 369.

Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson, in her August lawsuit of a similar nature, wrote that the law’s medical examiner distinction “is arbitrary and has no rational relation to the partisan status of county elections.” The lawsuit continued: “There is simply no reason why a county with a medical examiner should have a nonpartisan election for district attorney but a county with a coroner should have partisan elections for district attorney.”

We also contacted state Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat from Georgia, who has spoken about the bill on her social media. In a statement to Snopes via email, Clark’s office wrote that if voters want to see who and what are currently on their ballot, they can print a sample ballot at Georgia’s voting information page.

Sources