Pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood has been cleared in an investigation to determine if he violated Georgia election laws by moving to another state before voting last year.
The State Election Board voted on Tuesday to dismiss the case the Georgia secretary of state's office launched in February into where Wood had been living when he voted early in person in Georgia during the 2020 general election. A spokesperson for the secretary of state's office said there was no violation found.
The investigation was launched once the secretary of state's office found out from a television reporter that Wood had possibly been living in South Carolina at the time he voted. On February 1, Wood announced on Telegram he had moved to the state from Georgia.
A person's residence is considered "that place in which such person's habitation is fixed, without any present intention of removing therefrom" under Georgia law. The measure also states that if a person moves to another state "with the intention of making it such person's residence, such person shall be considered to have lost such person's residence in this state."
Wood wrote in an email to a WSB-TV reporter that he was "domiciled in South Carolina for several months after purchasing property in the state in April."
"While I spent time in South Carolina in 2020, I considered myself domiciled in Georgia and a resident of Georgia at all times in 2020," Wood wrote in a text message to the Associated Press. He added he voted in person in Georgia on October 21 for the 2020 general election, but did not vote in January for the Senate runoff.
After his move to South Carolina, Wood ran to become chairman of that state's Republican party, but his bid was ultimately unsuccessful.
Wood has insisted Trump won the election but that it was rigged so that he would lose. He filed legal challenges on his own and with attorney Sidney Powell, who kept fighting for Trump even after she was removed from his legal team. Wood and Powell were criticized by Republican leaders after they encouraged Georgia voters not to cast ballots in the U.S. Senate runoffs. Wood and Powell claimed the runoffs would be rigged and questioned the loyalty of Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to Trump before their losses tipped the Senate into Democratic control.
Wood and Powell were among nine lawyers who were ordered earlier this month to pay city of Detroit and state of Michigan a total of $175,000 in sanctions for abusing the court system with a sham lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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