A trio of conservative members of the Georgia State Election Board agreed Wednesday to further investigate Fulton County’s 2020 presidential election law violations despite warnings from fellow board members that their decision was illegal.
In a 3-2 vote Wednesday, right-wing GOP Georgia election board members Rick Jeffares, Janice Johnston and Janelle King voted to report findings from the Fulton investigation into allegations of double balloting, missing ballot images and a host of other violations tied to the controversial 2020 election highlighted by the presidential contest that saw Republican incumbent Donald Trump suffer defeat to the Democrat’s nominee Joe Biden.
The case is now referred to the Republican Attorney General Chris Carr, whose office is to report on its findings within 30 days and to notify the State Election Board immediately if the investigation cannot be conducted due to a conflict of interest with a case that has also been investigated by the Georgia Secretary of State. State agencies are considered clients of the Georgia Attorney General.
The vote Wednesday referred the Fulton case to the Attorney General’s office for investigation into 17,852 reported missing ballot images, the double-counting of more than 3,000 ballot vote images, and other election-related violations. In May, Georgia election officials with the secretary of state told the election board that mistakes made by Fulton election workers in 2020 would not have changed Trump’s narrow Georgia loss to Biden.
Wednesday’s state board vote followed a Tuesday meeting when the board set the stage for county election officials to delay certifying election results while demanding more information about how votes are tallied.
Johnston raised concerns that Carr’s office could be conflicted because the case also involves the secretary of state’s office, which has been involved in the initial investigation since a complaint was filed in 2023.
Wednesday’s election board dispute stems from the May 7 board meeting, in which the state panel voted 2-1 to formally reprimand Fulton County for a host of alleged election violations. At the time, the state board agreed to assign an independent election monitor to oversee Fulton’s election operations in this November’s election contest between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and the Democrat’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Wednesday, board members were split on whether the May agreement had been resolved when the Fulton County election board agreed on an election monitoring team in recent weeks.
Johnston said that state election and Fulton officials were unable to agree by the July deadline set by former election board member Ed Lindsey Jr., who presented the proposition in May with a timeline for reaching a compromise on appointing the 2024 election monitoring team.
“(Lindsey) let the board know that should an agreement not be reached on a monitor in July, that he will come back with a motion to reconsider and send (the case) to the attorney general,” Johnston said.
Johnston said that Fulton officials have made it difficult for her to inspect election materials that might reveal information about the missing election documents and other issues related to the case.
“It seems to me that somebody is moving heaven and earth to not allow anyone to review the paper ballots,” she said. “I don’t know why that is. I’m just interested in the data and interested in the numbers. I’m not interested in who got more votes.”
State board Chairman John Fervier said the case could not be reopened by Johnston, who failed to support the letter of reprimand and how the election monitors would be appointed in May.
Fervier warned that the board could be violating a “double jeopardy” law which prohibits anyone from being prosecuted twice for a case involving substantially the same charges.
Several hours before Wednesday’s vote to refer the case for further investigation, the State Election Board decided to postpone deciding who would serve on the team assigned to monitor Fulton’s elections.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the board heard presentations from two proposals seeking to independently watch Fulton’s election operations through the remainder of this year. Some questions were raised about members of one proposed morning team who had ties to right-wing “election deniers” conspiracists who had sought to overturn Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020.
Meanwhile, King expressed her distrust in the supporting and monitoring team led by a former Georgia Secretary of State attorney Ryan Germany, who she accused of repeatedly downplaying any serious election problems from 2020. That bi-partisan monitoring group received the support of the Fulton County Elections Board during a July meeting.
Sherri Allen, who was sworn in as chair of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections on Aug. 1, said the board has fully followed the state election officials’ actions in May, including accepting the reprimand of June 13 and selecting a monitor in July.
“We will not engage in any further discussions, investigations or other action related to this case,” Allen said in a statement. “To do so would be a waste of taxpayer dollars and time that is best spent preparing for the upcoming General Election.”
Sara Tindall Ghazal, the State Election Board’s sole Democrat, is an attorney who has specialized in election laws and she said Wednesday that she was voting against a measure that she contends would be a violation of her oath of as an state election officer and as an attorney “sworn to uphold the laws of the state of Georgia.”
King, who was appointed to the board by House Speaker Jon Burns last month, said worries about potential litigation should not dictate the board’s decisions.
“The amount of times I’ve been told not to do something because we could possibly be sued, if we were doing a drinking game, we would all be drunk,” King said. “At this point, I feel like we have to make sure we’re not scared of the fear of that because in some cases it’s the right thing to do.”
Fervier, who was appointed to serve in a nonpartisan chairmanship role in January by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, said that following the law is the best action to be taken.
“Following the law is something that I will always strive to do and will vote against when I think we’re violating the law or violating rules,” Fervier said.
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Georgia Recorder.
