On Tuesday, three members of the five-member commission rammed through a rules change that would allow local election board members to inspect countless documents if they feel something is amiss.
Or, more specifically, to provide information to their conspiracy-inclined comrades, they can keep investigating until they find something “weird.” Then, with that “finding,” they can cast doubt on the vote totals — not hard to do these days — and Congress can take advantage of the chaos and select the electoral rolls itself.
One former Republican lawmaker told me the plan is “dangerous, wrong and genius.”
That’s where we are right now.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
During a marathon eight-hour meeting on Tuesday, Election Commission Chairman John Favier tried to get his fellow commissioners to agree to a specific, limited list of basic documents that must be submitted before the local board can certify an election, such as a statement of election results, a vote totals tabulation form and a voter roll.
“I think there needs to be a list of documents that the Registration and Election Commission can look at, so they’re not doing endless searches of, ‘I need this document, I need that document,'” said Favier, the Waffle House executive who was appointed to the commission by Gov. Brian Kemp in January.
State law requires local election boards to certify election results on the Monday following an election. Local officials primarily count the votes cast and make sure the totals are correct. Allegations of potential fraud, such as lost ballots or double-counting, are often filed against the local election board. It may be filed after that period and challenged in court.
Councilwoman Sally Grubbs introduced a rule change to the committee that would give local committees the power to request any document they could think of. Grubbs’ foray into politics began in November 2020, when she tailed a truck leaving a Cobb County vote-counting facility because she thought important documents were being shredded. The county said it was a “routine” disposal of “irrelevant materials.”
Soon she was telling her story before the state Senate’s “Stop the Steal” Committee, which also included Rudy Giuliani.
A few months later, Grubbs was elected Cobb’s Republican chairman.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The State Election Board has experienced its own MAGA-ification over the past few years.
In 2022, state Republicans appointed Janice Johnston, a retired obstetrician-gynecologist, to the elections board. She has been a frequent critic of Fulton County since the 2020 elections, and she appears to be the brains behind the current group.
This year, fake elector Lt. Governor Bert Jones selected former state senator Rick Jefferies, who has a history of trying to deny the election, to the commission. My colleague Mark Nease previously reported that in 2020, while Donald Trump was contesting his defeat, Jefferies posted memes on Facebook suggesting dead people cast mail-in ballots, alleging Democrats colluded with China, and implying Democrats were fraudsters.
He is exactly the kind of rational and intelligent person that is needed on the election management committee.
Finally, in May, House Speaker John Burns sent conservative media commentator Janelle King to the board, giving the MAGA faction three votes. She replaced former Republican Rep. Ed Lindsey, who was asked to resign after being found not to be enthusiastic enough about election fraud conspiracy theorists.
I reached out to Johnston, Jeffers and King but did not hear back.
Fervier wants to include “guardrails” in any proposed new rules and appears to be the rational conservative of the group.
He replaces former federal Judge William Duffy, who resigned last year after more than a year of dealing with cranky, suspicious and often disrespectful crowds.
That passion has not waned yet.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
During last Tuesday’s meeting, members of the crowd heckled Ferbier as he called a caucus session, yelling things like, “Shame on you!” and “You’re a Third World country!” They cheered as Johnston, Jeffers and King left the meeting, then booed Ferbier and Democratic Rep. Sarah Tyndall Ghazal.
The crowd reminds me of the “Stop Cop City” crowd, though without the nose piercings.
Not to be outdone, the newly established MAGA majority also got up to some shenanigans over the weekend.
On Friday, the three members called a hastily arranged meeting to wrap up business that had not been completed three days earlier, knowing that the chairman and the board’s Democrats were traveling.
Why did they need to end it without the two directors who disagreed with them? Who knows, since they had three votes and could do what they wanted anyway.
Speaking before the meeting (which she was unable to attend), Ghazal told me that this was “the same as what we are seeing across the country”: electoral commissions being hijacked and electoral laws being weakened to serve the purposes of those who want to manipulate the election.
“It’s only going to get worse,” she said.
