Judge Eleanor Ross Recusal Georgia Ends Voter List Case Oversight

Judge Eleanor Ross recusal Georgia became public Tuesday when the U.S. District judge filed an order stepping away from the state election records case. Ross said she was acting “out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias” after the Justice Department questioned whether she could be impartial.

The recusal shifts oversight of a federal dispute in which the Justice Department had sued Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over an unredacted statewide voter list. It also removes Ross from a case tied to questions about her attendance at an event connected to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Ross Order on Tuesday

Ross wrote that she “cannot discount” that an objective observer might view her attendance at a campaign event for Willis as support for the district attorney’s position. In the same order, she said both the Trump administration’s present efforts and Willis’s past efforts had become heavily polarized. Those observations appeared in the recusal order that ended her role in the Georgia election records case.

The Justice Department had asked to remove Ross after citing her reported attendance at an event for Willis. That request put the judge’s outside associations directly in question while the federal dispute over Georgia voter records was still active. Ross responded by stepping aside rather than staying on the case while the challenge remained open.

Willis Event and Prior Work

Ross’s statement followed a court investigation that found she had sex in her chambers with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan event, and initially denied the allegations. The investigation report said she went to an event hosted by a district attorney’s campaign, and Ross said she attended a private mixer on the sidelines to visit former colleagues in the district attorney’s office.

Ross also previously worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, where she overlapped with Willis before Willis became district attorney. Ross later said Willis had been a friend since 1999. Those connections became part of the question over whether she should continue handling a case involving the Justice Department, Georgia’s secretary of state, and a statewide voter list request.

Trump Case Background

The recusal sits against the backdrop of Willis’s criminal case against Donald Trump and 18 others. Willis obtained that indictment in August 2023, and the case was ultimately dismissed in November. Ross’s order did not change those rulings, but it removed her from a separate federal dispute involving Georgia election records.

With Ross out, the case now moves to a different judge. The immediate practical effect is that the fight over whether the Justice Department can obtain an unredacted statewide voter list from Raffensperger’s office will proceed under new judicial oversight.