While much of the media is focused on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, Georgia is a thorn in my side. Why? Because the Georgia State Board of Elections considered even more rules and changes to the state's existing rules for elections during its meeting on Monday.
Both steps of the electoral committee were sharply criticized and described as an attempt to act like a wolf in sheep's clothing (electional administration publication).
As I and others have documented, The board – made up of a Republican chairman, three Donald Trump supporters whom the former president referred to as “pit bulls,” and a lone Democrat – pushed two new, troubling measures. First: approved a new rule allowing county election boards to delay certifying their results while they conduct “appropriate investigations.” Then it voted to order Georgia’s attorney general to investigate an already-settled complaint about ballot counting errors in Fulton County in 2020. (The state’s attorney general, Chris Carr, advised the board before its vote that reopening a complaint would be unlawful, and on Monday issued a formal written opinion saying the board had no right to order him to conduct such an investigation.)
Both of the Board of Elections' moves have been sharply criticized for being called wolves in sheep's clothing: they are ostensibly neutral processes being conducted in Georgia's counties, but in reality they are designed to prevent the certification of results from some counties or even the entire state.
But the Georgia Board of Elections wasn't satisfied with that. At its meeting on Monday, it approved a change to an existing rule proposed by Cobb County Republican Chairman Salleigh Grubbs. As outlined in Grubbs' petition, the change requires county boards to conduct a “reconciliation” of votes for each precinct, in which they must “compare the total number of votes cast to the total number of unique voter ID numbers.” It also requires that any discrepancy between the two, no matter how small or inconsequential, must be subject to an investigation. “No votes from that precinct will be counted” until the results of that investigation are presented to a county board, the petition states.
But that's not all. The so-called Grubbs Rule also empowers county-level election commissioners to “review all election-related documents created during the administration of the election before certifying the results.” Voting rights lawyers and activists have pointed out this lesser-known aspect of the rule to me, not only as a way to delay or deny certification, but more importantly, as a potential means of gathering “evidence” to perpetuate another “big lie” should Vice President Kamala Harris win the presidential election in Georgia.
During public comments during Monday's meeting, election officials from every county in the state of Georgia, interested citizens and civil rights activists expressed concerns that the Grubbs Rule would prevent counties from reporting results within the statutory deadline. Instead, the rule would “doom 159 counties,” as one election official noted.
Still, supporters of the rule suggested they were simply trying to ensure compliance with existing Georgia law. Former Department of Homeland Security official and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli even tried to distance the reconciliation proposal from 2020 election interference, claiming, “The other side complained in 2016… and whoever loses complains.”
Unfortunately for Cuccinelli, the ultra-conservative “voter fraud conspiracy” group True the Vote, which has recently focused on challenging voter registrations in several states, dropped the ruse. In a celebratory tweet, the group praised the Georgia Election Commission for creating “a reasonable audit trail” with the passage of the Grubbs Rule. That there will be an audit in every single Georgia county, let alone all of them, is simply assumed.
And so the citizens of Georgia are heading into a November election in which their election board has approved a series of secretive but dangerous procedures designed to avoid county-level certification and fuel stories of fraud and misery. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has been removed from his position on the panel and, unless he certifies the state's results without the errant districts, may not be able to do much. It's not clear whether Carr or Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp can stop the panel. (although Kemp has received a complaint from the former chairman of the Fulton County Board of Elections asking him to fire three board members for their unlawful conduct).
Will Georgia's courts ultimately be the state's best hope for a timely and fair election? Stay tuned.
