A US judge has denied a bid by Republicans to block seven counties in the battleground state of Georgia from accepting some absentee ballots and chided the party’s lawyers for what he termed discrimination against political opponents, Reuters reports.

The Republican National Committee on Sunday sued the seven counties in Savannah federal court for allowing voters to return absentee ballots over the weekend and on Monday. They said the early voting period was supposed to close on Friday, and asked the court to block the counties from accepting the ballots.

In a telephone hearing on Election Day US District Judge Stan Baker said the counties Republicans were targeting had all been Democratic-leaning in previous elections.

“I would only be invalidating votes in the select counties that plaintiffs have cherry-picked based on nothing more than the past political preferences of the citizens in those counties,” said Baker, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, who is again his party’s presidential candidate.

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