ATLANTA — Our Georgia Secretary of State’s office has chief oversight and administrative responsibility for elections in Georgia, working closely with roughly 180 municipal and county registrars and election superintendents.
The Georgia GOP now dominates the State Capitol, holding the majority in both legislative chambers, however the Democratic Party still holds sway in the bulk of core urban areas (Atlanta, Athens, Augusta, Albany, Columbus, Macon and Savannah).
Against that backdrop and an over-reactionary re-casting of the make-up of Georgia’s appointed State Election Board (SEB) brings us to today, with four appointed Republicans and one Democrat. The SEB is an administrative and ministerial body, with limited oversight and authority to call for investigations and review of any election, following allegations of fraud, mismanagement or other violations of state election law. The SEB is NOT an investigative agency nor judicial body, and the Georgia G.B.I. was given ‘original jurisdiction’ as well as created an Election Fraud unit, following passage of the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2021.
And yet, legal losses and lawsuit judgments aplenty to the contrary, many Trump True Believers still believe the Georgia 2020 Presidential contest to have been stolen...and a three-member majority of Trump acolytes on the SEB have driven the passage of 9 rule changes since summer, seemingly more focused on challenging the certification of election results than restoring voter confidence or maintaining the chain of security and ballot custody.
From the mouth of John Fervier, the SEB board chair, also appointed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp, “Our job is to clarify law, not create law. This doesn’t need to be an activist board. This board needs to stay within its boundaries.”
On Election Day, poll workers open up precincts at 5:30/6:30 a.m. Voting begins in the precincts at 7:00 a.m., closing 12 hours later at 7:00 p.m. Each voter is checked-in with an I-Pad, verifying that they are registered to vote, and at the correct precinct. The voter proceeds to a second station, after filling out a form with their full name and address, as registered, signs a voter affidavit, affirming their identity, and presents Voter I.D. to a second poll worker. The second poll worker checks their names against the list for that precinct, issues an anonymous but numbered Voter Machine Card to the voter, and they then go to a voting machine and cast their unique ballot, also numbered and with a QR code containing the details of their votes up and down that ballot.
The QR codes protect the anonymity of the voter and the choices they have made on their ballot, which otherwise might be easily read, as well as intentionally lost or destroyed. The ballot is then scanned into a secure container, keeping the paper copy for audit purposes, with each voting machine having an independent drive and memory of the ballots cast that election day. Once the precinct closes, the Precinct Captain cross checks that the number of ballots issued, adds up to the number of ballots counted and ready to be tabulated, from all of the voting machines in that precinct. Those results and the physical ballots are then transported to each county elections HQ in locked cases.
The three vote majority on the SEB recently added a rule requiring an additional hand count of those ballots at each precinct, unlocking those machines and handling each ballot.
This 4th check is both unnecessary and troublesome. Ballots are printed on simple copy paper. Water is not its friend. Rain is very often a companion to Georgia Election Days. Water can easily smear the ink of a QR code, making it illegible for reading or later audits, and breaking the chain of custody of ballot security. Georgia has almost 3000 voting precincts and thousands of precinct workers. The actual tabulation of those ballots then occurs at the county tabulation centers or elections office, with bi-partisan observers and members of the media typically present.
And if the Board Chair’s admonition is not proof enough that this threesome is heading in the wrong direction, President Trump referred to them as Ballot Pit bulls at an earlier Trump Rally in Georgia by name. I am not calling their names by choice, but I strongly request and suggest that these SEB members listen to their own Board Chair, Georgia’s Attorney General and Secretary of State, as well as a former GOP Governor and U.S. Senator among others. Stay in your lane. Leave investigation and potential fraud prosecution to the professionals, double check the math and certify the election results.
End of story.