Georgia’s State Election Board is set to resume its controversial remake of rules to certify vote counts this fall on Tuesday, just days after former President Donald Trump publicly praised three right-wing members for recently advancing several new election rules.
The board meeting Tuesday is set to include several GOP-backed rules that received Trump’s support during a rally at Georgia State University on Saturday. The proposed rules include allowing partisan poll watchers greater access to observe ballots being tabulated, requiring updated daily hand counts of ballots cast, and allowing local election officials more latitude to protest election results prior to certification. Today vote certification by local election officials is essentially an administrative role.
In recent weeks, the reshaped board has become dominated by Republicans who are unsure of President Joe Biden’s 2020 Georgia win, with the appointment of media personality Janelle King and former state legislator Rick Jeffares. They and fellow Republican board member Janice Johnston received high praise from Trump Saturday from the stage for their fight for “honesty, transparency, and victory.”
On Nov. 5, Trump will face Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is now her party’s official nominee.
“They’re on fire, they’re doing a great job,” Trump said while repeating his false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him in Georgia and several other states.
Last week, the state board reversed several rules advanced by the three Republicans during a testy late-scheduled meeting on July 12. A government watchdog group filed a lawsuit alleging that the board failed to provide proper notice of the meeting and did not have a majority of members to conduct the meeting. The meeting was also flagged as a potential violation of the Open Meetings Act by the state Attorney General’s office.
The board chairman and its lone Democratic member were unable to attend the July 12 meeting where the three right-wing members advanced proposals including allowing partisan poll watchers access to ballot tabulations.
Tuesday’s election board meeting includes several holdover proposed rules from last month. The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. inside the Georgia State Captiol’s Room 341 and will also be streamed virtually online from the board’s website.
The Georgia election board is set to consider 19 proposals over the next few weeks that could significantly alter how elections are handled in November’s general election, according to a Voting Rights Lab, an advocacy group that tracks states election laws.
This includes proposals that could interfere with canvassing and certification of election results and burden election workers by mandating hand counting of ballots at every polling precinct during early voting and resolving any discrepancies, the Voting Rights Lab memo says.
Several election integrity groups and other supporters of the Republican proposals argue the changes will strengthen election accuracy by preventing unintentional irregularities and outright fraud.
Jay Riestenberg, a spokesman for the Voting Rights Lab, said Monday that the group was not aware of any other state election boards proposing significant changes this close to the November election.
Prior to the start of Tuesday’s meeting, state Democratic Reps. Sam Park, Ruwa Romman, and Inga Willis are scheduled to hold a press conference inside the Capitol to sound the alarm about Trump’s praising King, Johnston and Jeffares at Saturday’s rally, according to a news release from left-leaning voting rights organization Fair Fight.
Fair Fight Action’s Max Flugrath posted on X accusations that Trump-aligned -election board members are changing the rules to sabotage the 2024 election should the former president lose according to the official tally.
“Trump has tried to use tactics to delay certification before in Georgia,” Fair Fight wrote in an email notification about the Democratic lawmakers press conference on Tuesday. “In 2020, a Coffee County elections official delayed certification of President Joe Biden’s victory, refusing to validate recount results and using Trump-backed false election conspiracies as the reason.”
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, has noted that two phases of election disinformation tactics are being used by political operatives and others leading up to Election Day. These tactics are intended to change voter behavior intentionally or unintentionally by creating confusion, including by spreading lies regarding the integrity of the election process, he said.
“The easiest way to suppress a voter is to get them to self-suppress so they believe that the election was stolen, to incite them to anger and hatred of their fellow Americans, and potentially violence,” Becker said during a July 30 election media conference hosted by the National Press Foundation. “ The period of time I’m most concerned about is that period of time from Nov. 5 when the polls close to Dec. 11,” when electors appointed by state political parties are scheduled to meet.
Trump’s targeting complaints about the conduct of Georgia elections included social media posts targeting Republicans Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for refusing to overturn the former president’s 2020 loss to Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes.
Trump’s attacks against Kemp during his 90-minute speech at Saturday’s Atlanta rally were widely panned by Georgia Republicans legislators and other GOP commentators, who quickly voiced their objections via social media. Raffensperger responded by defending Georgia’s “secure” elections and stating that the results of the elections in November would reflect the will of voters.
Tuesday’s board meeting is set to begin with two proposed rules presented by the nonprofit Coalition for Good Governance, which is requesting the board members to adopt emergency rules for hand-marked paper ballots and other cybersecurity measures for upcoming elections.
Jeanne Dufort, chair of Morgan County Democratic Committee, said that nobody wants the 2020 election controversies to repeat. The state board has the power to reduce cybersecurity risks of Georgians casting votes on computer marked ballots and using an electronic voting machines system that has come into the hands of several unauthorized people over the last several years, Dufort wrote to the board in support of the coalition’s rules petition.
The Morgan Democratic Committee says it is concerned that partisan actors could disrupt Election Day with false evidence that votes had been flipped by machines, ballot secrecy violations could be used to challenge election outcomes, or the election may be compromised by a real or staged cyberattacks, she said.
“We are focused on setting an example for a better way for political parties and their leaders across a wide spectrum to set aside our differences and work together to adopt sound election administration practices that are inherently transparent and accountable,” Dufort wrote in a July 31 email. “Mistrust is rampant, and it’s hard to work together with people who see things so differently. But we have spoken with Democrats and Republicans across the state, and we agree on a few key principles.”
This story was provided by WABE content partner Georgia Recorder.
