Lawrence Hurley for NBC News:

When a local Republican official in Georgia filed a lawsuit this year declaring that election boards did not have a duty to certify results, the lawyer she turned to was part of the legal team who worked on former President Donald Trump’s behalf there in 2020.

Atlanta-based attorney Alex Kaufman, whose name appears on the lawsuit, was a silent listener on the infamous January 2021 call in which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to have reversed his loss there. He was also part of the legal team that tried to submit an alternative slate of electors in the state.

Kaufman’s involvement in this year’s lawsuit filed by Julie Adams, a member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, shows how even as the Republican National Committee is waging a more disciplined legal effort than in 2020, reminders remain of the chaos of four years ago as Trump sought to hold on to power.

Several of those lawyers involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election faced legal consequences for their actions, including disbarment and criminal charges, in what was viewed as an effort to deter similar actions in the future….

A source close to the Trump campaign said that in 2020, a consent decree limiting Republican “ballot security” activities had hampered their ability to build a comprehensive program in time for the election, as they were still getting their footing.

The 2020 campaign may have also suffered from a lack of imagination about how big the turnout would be and what Democrats were doing in the courts to expand the vote, a Trump campaign adviser said. “They were caught flat-footed,” the person added.

But while this time around there is no Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman or Sidney Powell — three of the lawyers who actively sought to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and faced criminal charges as a result — there are still some repeat players like Kaufman involved in litigation around the country….