In the Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided: May 3, 2021

S21A0306. BELL v. RAFFENSPERGER.

 BOGGS, Justice.

Andrew Bell challenges the denial of his application for a writ 

of mandamus and injunctive relief in which he sought to compel 

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to include Bell’s name as an 

independent candidate on the ballot for the November 3, 2020 

election for Georgia House District 85. Bell claims, among other 

things, that he collected the signatures required for him to qualify 

as a candidate and that the trial court erred by not requiring the 

Secretary to place Bell’s name on the ballot. Because the November 

3, 2020 general election is over and the ballots have been printed, 

cast, and counted, however, there is no such ballot upon which Bell 

could still be placed, this Court cannot grant Bell the relief he 

requests, and this appeal must be dismissed as moot. 
2

On March 2, 2020, Bell submitted to the Secretary his notice of 

candidacy as an independent for House District 85 for the November 

3, 2020 general election. See OCGA § 21-2-132 (d). To qualify as a 

candidate for that office, he sought to collect the required signatures 

under OCGA § 21-2-170 (b), which in the case of non-statewide 

offices is five percent of the registered voters eligible to vote for that 

office in the last election. Accordingly, Bell was required to obtain 

1,793 signatures. Bell had until July 14, 2020 to file his nomination 

petition with the required signatures. See OCGA § 21-2-132 (e).

The COVID-19 pandemic changed these requirements. On July 

9, 2020, a federal court issued an injunction directing the Secretary 

to lower the signature requirement by 30 percent in light of the 

burden imposed by the pandemic on voters’ and candidates’ rights.

See Cooper v. Raffensperger, 472 FSupp.3d 1282, 1296-1297 (III-IV)

(N.D. Ga. 2020). This injunction reduced the number of signatures 

Bell was required to obtain to 1,255. In recognition of these same 

burdens, the Secretary extended the signature-gathering period 

from 180 days to 211 days, moving the deadline for submitting 
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nomination petitions to August 14, 2020. 

On August 13, 2020, Bell submitted his nomination petition to 

the Secretary; the petition included 2,200 signatures. On September 

4, Bell received an email from the Secretary notifying Bell that his 

petition was denied because he had failed to submit the required 

1,255 signatures. The letter attached to the email indicated that of 

the submitted signatures, only 827 were valid and verified; the rest 

were out of district, duplicates, printed names rather than

signatures, for persons not registered to vote, or illegible. 

In response, on September 8, 2020, Bell filed an emergency 

application for writ of mandamus and injunctive relief in the Fulton 

County Superior Court against the Secretary in his official capacity.1

See OCGA § 21-2-171 (c). In his application, Bell complained about 

communication issues with candidate registration and election office 

staff regarding the status of his nomination petition, the fact that he 

was not notified until September 4 that his nomination petition had 

been denied, and the fact that the denial letter he received had the 

 1 Bell is pro se and has been throughout the course of these proceedings.
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wrong date and the previous Secretary listed on the letterhead. 

Bell’s application sought the following relief: (1) a temporary 

restraining order prohibiting the Secretary from printing any ballots 

without Bell’s name in advance of a hearing; (2) an injunction either 

prohibiting the Secretary from printing the ballot without Bell’s 

name or requiring the Secretary to place him on the ballot; and (3) 

a writ of mandamus ordering the Secretary to validate Bell’s 

signature petition and place him on the ballot.

On September 9, 2020, Bell sought an ex parte hearing. The 

trial court then scheduled a virtual hearing for the earliest possible 

date in accordance with the Secretary’s right to five days’ notice 

under OCGA § 9-10-2, which was September 15.2 On September 11, 

Bell filed a discovery request for, among other things, copies of the 

 2 OCGA § 9-10-2, in pertinent part, reads as follows: 

Any . . . judicial action by any court in this State in any matter in 

which . . . an official of this state in his official capacity is a party 

defendant . . . shall be void unless it affirmatively appears as a 

matter of record . . . :

(1) That the Attorney General was given five days’ advance

written notice by the adverse party or his attorney of the 

time set for the particular trial, hearing, or other 

proceeding[.]
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“examined nomination petitions.” The Secretary did not produce the 

requested discovery by the hearing date. Bell never filed a motion to 

compel discovery. The court denied Bell’s application orally at the 

September 15 hearing and by written order on September 17, ruling 

that Bell failed to assert a clear legal right to relief, as required for 

mandamus, and that Bell failed to demonstrate that he submitted 

the required number of verified signatures or that the rejected 

signatures were rejected in error.

On September 22, 2020, Bell filed in this Court an “Emergency 

Application for Appellate Review” of the trial court’s order, which 

was docketed as an application for discretionary appeal and then 

granted under OCGA § 5-6-35 (j) on October 16. Bell filed a notice of 

appeal in the trial court on October 5, and after the appeal was 

docketed here on October 16, he filed his brief in this Court on 

October 29. Bell never moved for expedited treatment of this 

appeal.3

 3 We recognize that OCGA § 21-2-171 (c) provides in part as follows: 
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The ballots for the November 3, 2020 general election were 

printed on September 15. Early voting began on October 12 and 

ended on October 30. Since this appeal was docketed in this Court, 

the November 3, 2020 general election and January 6, 2021 run-off 

election have both occurred, the results of those elections have been 

certified, and the seat for the next term as representative of House 

District 85 has been filled by the previous incumbent, Karla 

Drenner. 

 

From any decision of the superior court an appeal may be taken 

within five days after the entry thereof. It shall be the duty of the 

appellate court to fix the hearing and to announce its decision 

within such period of time as will permit the name of the candidate 

affected by the court’s decision to be printed on the ballot if the 

court should so determine.

Bell never invoked the latter sentence of this provision in his application 

or initial briefing. By the time his appeal was docketed here and it was clear 

from his brief that he was enumerating as error a superior court decision on a 

nomination petition under OCGA § 21-2-171, his appeal was already moot, as 

we explain below. But we take this opportunity to emphasize that an appellant 

seeking to rely on the expedited-review provision in OCGA § 21-2-172 (c) 

should alert the Court that the appeal involves a decision on a nomination 

petition by filing a motion for expedited appeal citing that provision. See, e.g., 

Lewy v. Beazley, 270 Ga. 11, 12 (507 SE2d 721) (1998) (deciding on the merits 

an appeal from the denial of mandamus under OCGA § 21-2-271 (c) when, 

“[a]fter timely filing her notice of appeal, Lewy applied to this Court for an 

expedited appeal pursuant to OCGA § 21-2-171 (c), which was granted by the 

Court”). 
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1. Bell claims that he did collect the required number of 

signatures to be placed on the November 3, 2020 general election 

ballot for the House District 85 race as an independent candidate 

and that the trial court erred in denying his application for a writ of

mandamus and injunctive relief to compel the Secretary to place him 

on the ballot. We need not address the merits of Bell’s claims 

because this appeal must be dismissed as moot.

When a nomination petition is denied by the Secretary, a 

petitioner may seek review of that decision by a superior court “upon 

an application for a writ of mandamus to compel the granting of such 

petition.” OCGA § 21-2-171 (c). Under the procedures outlined in the 

statute, the decision of the superior court may then be appealed to 

this Court. See id.

An appeal, however, must be dismissed “[w]here the question[] 

presented has become moot.” OCGA § 5-6-48 (b) (3). “An appeal 

becomes moot if the rights insisted upon could not be enforced by a 

judicial determination.” Randolph County v. Johnson, 282 Ga. 160, 

160 (1) (646 SE2d 261) (2007). Put another way, when “the act that 
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is the subject” of the requested relief “is completed, then the matter 

is moot and no longer subject to appeal.” City of Comer v. Seymour, 

283 Ga. 536, 537 (661 SE2d 539) (2008) (applying mootness doctrine 

to a request for injunction); see also Baez v. Miller, 266 Ga. 211, 211 

(465 SE2d 671) (1996) (same as to a writ of mandamus).

This mootness principle applies in the election context. We 

acknowledge, however, that some of our election-contest cases have 

simply declared an appeal moot due to the occurrence of the general 

election rather than analyzing whether various claims on appeal 

were moot in light of the specific relief sought.4 To be clear: an appeal 

 4 See, e.g., Bodkin v. Bolia, 285 Ga. 758, 759-760 (684 SE2d 241) (2009) 

(mandamus action to force the Secretary to print candidate’s name on the 

ballot deemed moot by occurrence of the general election); Randolph County, 

282 Ga. at 160 (1) (challenge to writ of prohibition preventing a hearing on the 

qualifications of a candidate whose name was on the ballot deemed moot by 

occurrence of the general election); Brooks v. Brown, 282 Ga. 154, 154-155 (646 

SE2d 265) (2007) (challenge to the date of the election deemed moot by 

occurrence of the general election); Palmer v. Conner, 247 Ga. 35, 36 (273 SE2d 

612) (1981) (“Because the general election has already taken place, it is too late 

to conduct a second primary run-off and this appeal must be dismissed as 

moot.”); Barker v. Cook, 242 Ga. 780, 780 (251 SE2d 553) (1979) (challenge to 

candidate’s qualifications deemed moot by his loss in the general election). We 

need not go back and review the details of each of these prior cases in order to 

determine whether they all correctly applied the mootness doctrine, as this 

opinion clarifies the proper approach. See DeKalb County School District v. 

Gold, 307 Ga. 330, 335-336, 336 n.5 (3) (834 SE2d 808) (2019).
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is moot when this Court can no longer provide the specific relief 

requested; election cases are no exception. 

Here, Bell asks this Court to reverse the trial court’s order and 

direct the trial court to grant him the specific mandamus and 

injunctive relief he requested: to either compel the Secretary to put 

his name on the November 3, 2020 general election ballot or prohibit

the Secretary from printing ballots without his name on them. But 

the ballots for the November 3, 2020 general election had been 

printed a month before Bell’s appeal was docketed in this Court, and 

early votes had been cast using those ballots for two weeks before 

Bell filed his brief. The November 3, 2020 general election, including 

the House District 85 race, is now over, and the election result has 

been certified. Therefore, through injunction, to the extent that 

injunctive relief is even available in a case of this type, and 

mandamus, Bell seeks to stop the printing of ballots that have 

already been printed, cast, and counted, and he seeks to compel the 

Secretary to place his name on a ballot that no longer exists for an 

election that has already occurred. This Court is no longer capable 
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of granting the type of relief Bell requests, so this appeal is moot. 

See Bodkin, 285 Ga. at 759-760; see also Merry v. Williams, 281 Ga. 

571, 571–572 (1) (642 SE2d 46) (2007) (mandamus petition to compel 

a new election for a city’s mayor pro tempore for 2006 was moot 

when “the year 2006 ended and Defendants performed the public 

duty of electing a new Mayor Pro Tempore for 2007”). 

Because Bell’s claim for mandamus and injunctive relief is 

moot, this appeal must be dismissed. 

Appeal dismissed. All the Justices concur.