ATLANTA (CN) — Emboldened by Georgia’s recent rewrite of election rules, the state’s elections board voted unanimously on Wednesday to investigate how the heavily Democratic Fulton County manages elections.
The Republican-led State Elections Board named a bipartisan, three-person panel to review elections operations in Georgia’s most populous county, whose seat is Atlanta.
The panel includes a Democrat from Gwinnett County’s election board, Stephen Day, along with Rickey Kittle, a Republican serving as chairman of the Catoosa County elections board, and Ryan Germany, the general counsel for the office of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – a Republican who has called for the firing of Fulton County’s elections supervisor.
Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts blasted the review in a tweet Wednesday.
“This is the result of a cynical ploy to undermine faith in our elections process and democracy itself — it is shameful partisan politics at its worst,” he wrote.
The state board’s move was made possible in March, when Republican Governor Brian Kemp signed into law a sweeping bill that makes several changes to how future elections will run.
The Peach State’s 159 counties have historically handled the majority of facets surrounding the administration of elections, but part of the controversial new law bolstered the state board’s authority to intervene.
The law allows the state board to remove and replace local election officials following performance reviews or audits, enabling it to appoint a temporary administrator with power over vote counting, polling locations and staffing.
The legislation required the board to appoint a panel to review Fulton County’s performance once two state representatives and two senators from the county asked for a review. Last month, four Republican lawmakers from the county fulfilled the prerequisite.
The 98-page bill passed by the Republican-led General Assembly also included a new photo ID requirement for voting absentee by mail, and made it a misdemeanor to pass out food and drinks to anyone standing in line to vote.
Republicans at both the state and national level have long sought to reign in the electoral influence of Fulton County, a democratic bastion that encompasses most of Atlanta.
The GOP’s focus on Fulton County escalated after former President Donald Trump lost the state to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election by a slim margin.
Following Biden’s overwhelming victory in Fulton County, Trump baselessly claimed that election fraud in that area must have contributed to his narrow defeat in the swing state.
As a condition of a consent order between the state and Fulton County, an independent monitor was appointed to observe the general election.
The monitor reported that the county’s elections were conducted sloppily, but, like state investigators, found no evidence of fraud.
Three separate counts of the county’s ballots yielded similar results.
Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group set up by former Democratic state lawmaker Stacey Abrams, slammed the GOP review of the election process in Fulton County in a recent statement.
“After giving themselves unprecedented power under Senate Bill 202, Republicans wasted no time in waging an anti-democratic, partisan power grab, attempting to seize control of elections in Georgia’s largest county, home to the greatest number of voters of color in the state,” said CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo.
She added, “It is unbelievable but expected behavior from Georgia Republicans who are determined to win at all costs as Georgians reject their failed leadership.”
Follow Erika Williams on Twitter
Follow @@ErikaKate5
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
