Protesters lodged accusations of open meetings violations at three conservative State Election Board members on July 12. Board member Rick Jeffares, right, responds by threatening to remove people for being disruptive while Janelle King (left) looks on. Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder
“This is a time for extreme courage,” Donald Trump told his vice president in an inflammatory tweet on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.
As we know, Trump’s goal that day was to stay in power by whatever means necessary. And to achieve that goal, he needed Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes from Georgia and other swing states that he had lost, claiming that the true winner in those states was unknowable due to fraud.
Pence refused, because he knew he had no such power.
The vice president understood that under the Constitution, his only role in presiding over the electoral vote count later that day would be ceremonial. He had no legal authority to dictate which electoral votes would be counted and which would not. His only job was to announce the results.
So that’s what he did, and the republic was saved.
Here in Georgia, local boards of election play a similar ceremonial role in certifying an election. Under long-standing state law, these unelected, untrained volunteers have no power to block the counting of votes or to judge the legitimacy of an election. They have no power to investigate supposed wrongdoing. Like a vice president counting electoral votes, their only function is to announce the results.
However, a three-member rogue majority on the State Election Board is attempting to undermine that system, with potentially significant consequences to the upcoming election. That new majority, all Trump supporters, has rushed through a series of rule changes attempting to redefine what it means to certify an election, giving local boards a degree of authority that the state Legislature never envisioned.
Suddenly, thanks to those rule changes, “certify” means “to attest, after reasonable inquiry, that the tabulation and canvassing of the election are complete and accurate….” Suddenly, local volunteer boards are not just empowered to investigate, they have a duty to do so. Suddenly, those boards also have the authority to demand any election-related documents they believe they need to judge the legitimacy of an election.
“Ensuring that every county election board member has access to all election-related documentation actually strengthens the certification process,” claims Janelle King, one of the three board members pushing through these changes. “By being fully informed, board members are better equipped to certify with confidence, knowing they have all necessary information to support their decisions.”
According to King, local board members need those new powers if they are to feel “comfortable” with their decision to certify.
No, they do not.
Under state law, board members don’t have to feel “comfortable” about their decision because, just like Pence on Jan. 6, they don’t have a “decision” to make in the first place. Just as the Constitution says that the vice president “shall open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted,” Georgia law says local election board members “shall certify,” which means announce the results, and must do so by a date certain. There is no wriggle room.
By falsely claiming that local boards have a decision to make in certifying, by giving them the power to “do their own research” until they feel “comfortable,” you create a false expectation that their decision can be no. Basically, those local boards are being told what Trump told Pence, that they have the power to decide whether votes are counted.
“We have Republican stronghold counties who have majority Republican boards that could just performatively say we’re not going to certify this,” an unnamed official in the secretary of state’s office told The Dispatch. “I think that’s very likely to happen.”
It’s important to note that these rule changes are strongly backed by national election-nullification groups that still insist Trump was the legitimate victor in 2020. Indeed, there’s strong evidence that those national groups even wrote the rules that the state board is enacting.
So what can be done to prevent chaos come November, when state and national polls suggest another very close race?
One avenue is through the courts. Democrats have already filed a state lawsuit seeking to block implementation of the new rules. They have also filed ethics complaints against the three rogue election board members, alleging that they are acting illegally by attempting to give local boards a power to nullify election outcomes that no state law gives them.
On the political side, all this comes at a delicate time for Gov. Brian Kemp and other top Georgia Republicans. Trump has publicly embraced the work of the state board’s majority, celebrating them as “pit bulls … for victory,” so any move by Kemp to rein them in would renew Trump’s rage against him. It might also doom Kemp’s effort to project an image of GOP unity with the election just two months away.
As governor, Kemp has the power to appoint the chair of the five-member state board.
In January, to his credit, he named Waffle House executive John Fervier to that thankless position, and Fervier has acted with integrity and immense patience. It’s not his fault that he has been outvoted.
Under state law, the state Republican and Democratic parties each get a nominee to the board. The state GOP, dominated by diehard election deniers, of course appointed an fellow election denier in Dr. Janice Johnston. The Georgia Senate, under Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, named Rick Jeffares as its nominee. Jones was deeply involved in the conspiracy to throw out the Georgia results four years ago, even serving as a fake Trump elector, so it’s no surprise that Jeffares is of similar mind.
King, the third of the pit bulls, was appointed by House Speaker Jon Burns, who typically takes a more reserved, much more responsible approach to leadership duties. Unfortunately, Burns has remained publicly silent about the actions of his appointee to the state board, and according to King has expressed no concerns privately either.
That’s irresponsible. Kemp, Burns and Attorney General Chris Carr each have an obligation to defend state law, state elections and democracy, and it’s up to Georgia voters to remind them of their duty to do so now, before the votes are being counted and the system is most vulnerable to disruption.
Here’s how they can be reached:
Gov. Brian Kemp: 404-656-1776
Attorney General Chris Carr: 404-458-3600
House Speaker Jon Burns: 404-656-5052