SAVANNAH, Ga. — Democrat David Dillie will stay on the Nov. 3 ballot in the Savannah-area race for Georgia House District 161 after a state judge turned back the Secretary of State’s effort to disqualify him.
The ruling came Friday, Oct. 30, from Judge Kimberly W. Schroer, who hears cases for the state’s administrative hearings office. She had taken testimony a day earlier in a hearing held over Zoom. Dillie, 24, faces Republican incumbent Rep. Bill Hitchens, 79, in a district that covers west Chatham County along with a slice of Effingham County.
The challenge centered on a Nevada primary ballot cast in Dillie’s name in June. The state argued that voting in another state’s election meant he had given up his Georgia residency, which state law treats as forfeited in that case. Dillie had already voted in person in Georgia’s May primary.
Dillie testified that he did not fill out or turn in the Nevada ballot, which had been mailed to his former address in Las Vegas. Nevada sends absentee ballots to every registered voter, and he had never canceled his registration there after moving.
Schroer found the state had not proved its case. She noted there was no video showing who dropped off the ballot and that the signature on it was never reviewed by an expert. She concluded the evidence did not show Dillie cast it.
According to the decision, Dillie moved back to Georgia around September 2024 and registered to vote here that month. He qualified for the House seat on March 6, 2026, and studies construction management at Savannah Technical College. The ruling keeps a race some see as a possible flip on the ballot.
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