Lester Harmon has withdrawn his appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court concerning a lower court ruling that dismissed his challenge of the 2009 Temple mayoral election on a technicality.

Harmon said Tuesday the case was withdrawn because deadlines had been missed to file legal briefs due to various issues, including the death of the mother of his son-in-law and attorney, Jason Bice, the week of the latest deadline. Harmon said there have been multiple instances throughout the legal process in which the legal representatives of his opponents in the suit — Temple Mayor Rick Ford, Elections Supervisor Patti Brown-Traylor and the Carroll County Board of Elections — have not acted in “good faith” by using delay tactics and other strategies to keep his legal representatives from filing the proper paperwork on time.

“They didn’t have anything to do with Jason’s momma dying, but we would have made the deadline before that happened if they wouldn’t have delayed us,” Harmon said.

Harmon challenged the November 2009 elections in which he lost to Ford by three votes, claiming that he had proof of at least six individuals who had cast ballots illegally by not being registered voters living within the city limits. He also charged that the Board of Elections and Registration had been made aware of some of those voters prior to the election by the voters themselves. He now says he has found as many as 18 illegal voters.

Harmon’s challenge was dismissed in December without being heard by Superior Court Judge Richard Sutton after Ford’s attorney, David Mecklin, successfully argued that a special summons as required by an earlier appellate court decision relating to election challenges had never been served on the defendants.

Though his appeal to the Supreme Court has been withdrawn, Harmon said he is pursuing other avenues. However, other than to say these avenues were through the judicial system, Harmon would not shed any further light on his intentions.

“We’re certainly not giving up,” he said. “I can’t expand on that because they may try to block that as well.”

Harmon further claimed this week that the Secretary of State’s Office is investigating some of the allegations he’s made about irregularities in the election. Brown-Traylor confirmed Tuesday that an SOS investigator had contacted her about getting a court order to reopen the election documents Judge Sutton had ordered sealed after the December hearing.

“We have nothing to hide,” Brown-Traylor said. “We have gone strictly by the law and that’s all we can do.”

Ford said he has moved forward with the business of the city since Judge Sutton’s ruling, which includes paying the city’s portion of the legal fees associated with the election challenges. Though Ford has paid his own attorney’s fees, the city has an intergovernmental agreement with the Board of Elections to pay for their office to conduct municipal elections and all legal expenses incurred in doing so.

Ford said the total bill to the city has already eclipsed $10,000, not including the cost for briefs that have already been completed relating to the appeal to the Supreme Court. The estimated cost for the Supreme Court portion of the bill if it would have come to fruition was an additional $18,500.

“I’m glad it’s over, but I hate it has gotten to this point because the loser in the long run has been the taxpayers of the city of Temple for having to foot this bill,” Ford said. “I would question why we had to get this far in the process only to drop it all of a sudden.”