Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a new Georgia law that would remove party labels from ballots for many local offices in Atlanta-area counties, setting up a court fight that prosecutors say could decide the measure’s fate. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said they will challenge the bill’s constitutionality after Kemp signed it privately on Tuesday, the final day for governors to sign or veto bills after the 2026 legislative session.
The bill would require nonpartisan elections for most local officials in Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett counties, with district attorneys remaining excluded from the nonpartisan requirement. Republicans backed the change, while Willis and Boston said it would violate the Georgia Constitution and they would bring a lawsuit.
“This is a blatant attempt by Republicans to give their candidates an edge in Democratic counties by hiding their party affiliation from voters,” Willis and Boston said in a statement Tuesday. The prosecutors argued that the change would affect elections in areas where Democrats have been consolidating political control.
The measure is set to go into effect in 2028. It would shift elections for all affected officials except district attorneys to May, when voters choose nonpartisan judges; if no candidate wins a majority, the bill would require nonpartisan runoffs in June.
Republicans, including State Sen. John Albers, defended the bill during the legislative session, saying it will promote public safety. Albers, a Republican from the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, said the counties’ elected sheriffs would continue to be elected under party labels when the law takes effect.
Willis and Boston’s pushback also drew on what they said has been a broader pattern of Republican efforts targeting district attorneys in Georgia. They suggested Republicans were targeting the counties because each has elected a Black woman as district attorney, pointing to Willis in Fulton County and Boston in DeKalb County.
In response to similar battles over district attorneys in past years, the association representing district attorneys has argued that state legislation cannot change district attorneys’ partisan status because district attorneys are state judicial branch officers rather than county officers. The association also has argued that a state constitutional amendment would be needed instead, and that Democrats could block such a change because it requires a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly to put the amendment before Georgia voters.
The dispute reflects how Georgia’s political landscape has shifted in recent election cycles, especially in the core Atlanta counties that Democrats have increasingly dominated. Democrats have said Republicans are working to improve the odds for GOP candidates who run without party labels in jurisdictions where party identification has often favored Democrats.
The legislation also drew support and criticism against the backdrop of how Georgia elections are structured in swing-state areas. It applies to counties that include most of Atlanta through Fulton County and that include suburbs in the other four counties, which Democrats have described as key to maintaining their hold on local offices.
As the bill moves from Kemp’s signature toward potential litigation, the outcome could affect not only the offices covered by the nonpartisan requirement but also the broader question prosecutors and Republicans are now disputing: whether Georgia’s constitution allows the state to reclassify party labels for local elections in the way the new law would do.