Ashwin Ramaswami takes on a fake elector for a Georgia state senate seat

The top of a ticket might normally be expected to have a profound impact on local races, especially with new vigor thanks to Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden. The problem in Georgia is that there are almost no local races worth discussing because the state is gerrymandered to microscopic proportions.

The Republican state senator Shawn Still will face trial in the Fulton county election interference case along with Donald Trump and 17 other co-defendants. He is accused of being one of the so-called fake electors in the scheme.

Ramaswami is a computer science graduate from Stanford University with a law degree from Georgetown, which he somehow managed to obtain while bouncing between startups and Google internships and fellowships with venture capital outfits and work for the federal government on election cybersecurity.

He turned 25 at the end of July, four months ahead of the cutoff where he would have been too young to run for the Georgia senate.

Still, 52, owner of a swimming pool subcontracting company and a former finance chairman for the Georgia Republican party, did not return calls or emails asking for comment. But he has presented himself as a relatively moderate Republican and maintains his innocence in the case, describing his role as necessary to preserve legal challenges to the 2020 election in Georgia.

Twenty years ago, most people who lived in the district were white. Not so now, Still said.

Up until recently, he also sounded like it.

Sara Henderson, a Georgia-based political consultant, knows Ramaswami and likened the persistence of his campaigning to being sold an extended warranty.

But the goal is name recognition, Ramaswami said. His internal polling suggests he is now more recognizable than Still is.