How to fight back against controversial rule changes by the state election authority – Capital B News

Voting rights activists in Georgia are urging residents who oppose recent changes to the state's voting rules to make their voices heard at Governor Brian Kemp's office and at the next State Board of Elections meeting on September 20.

Three Donald Trump-supporting members of the State Election Board – Janelle King, Rick Jeffares and Janice Johnston – are facing intense criticism from voters for agreeing to new election rules less than three months before the November 5 general election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democrats and some Republicans – including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – have raised the alarm.

Among the proposed rules is that county election board members can conduct a “reasonable investigation” before certifying the election results in November, and ballots must be counted by hand to ensure their total matches the number of people who voted on Election Day. Board of Elections leaders in the Atlanta area complained that this requirement may not be met within six days, as required by state law.

The rule changes violate the state's ethics guidelines, say several election law experts and Democratic lawmakers, who filed a lawsuit Monday after calling on Kemp to force the three members of the state election board who approved the changes to resign.

Kemp has asked Attorney General Chris Carr for clarification on whether the governor has the authority to take action against the board members, whom Trump described at a recent campaign rally in Atlanta as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”

Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight Action, says these rule changes could have a disproportionate impact on black voters in Georgia. She added that opponents of the rule changes are not powerless to stop them and recommended that people contact Kemp's office and let him know where voters stand on the issue.

“Call Governor Kemp and tell him to stop the certification actions at the State Election Board,” Groh-Wargo told reporters during a press conference Wednesday morning. “You can also submit public comments to the State Election Board, and we have made a great effort to get public comments.”

Georgia residents may submit public comments for the next State Election Board meeting by emailing [email protected]. They may also attend the State Election Board meeting in person on September 20 at the State Capitol.

A pro-Trump conspiracy?

According to Fair Fight Action, Georgia residents who believe Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election have spoken out at State Election Board meetings and at the Gold Dome over the past four years.

That push led to the passage of controversial election integrity laws such as Senate Bill 202 and Senate Bill 189. It also prompted members of the State Election Board in recent weeks to approve rule changes that critics say will lead to legal chaos on Election Day.

And that's exactly what Trump and his supporters want, according to a recent report from Rolling Stone, which also mentions similar efforts by pro-Trump supporters to take control of county election commissions in other swing states.

Emails between some pro-Trump members of the Electoral College and their contacts obtained by Rolling Stone show a coordinated effort to disrupt the election certification process. The apparent goal, several voting rights activists say, may be to take the choice away from voters and put it in the hands of court judges – the same thing that happened in 2000 in Bush v. Gore.

“It is very likely that these issues will end up before the Supreme Court,” Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, an attorney specializing in election law, told reporters on Wednesday. “The question is whether that will happen sooner rather than later, whether these issues will be resolved before or after the election.”

Lawrence-Hardy said she worked on the Bush v. Gore case during the 2000 presidential campaign. She acknowledged that the Supreme Court is currently 6-3 conservative and in recent years has overturned decades of precedent that ruled against federal abortion rights, affirmative action and the Chevron doctrine, which undermined the power of federal agencies such as the FDA and EPA to regulate large corporations.

The Supreme Court also ruled in Trump's favor in its ruling in Trump v. United States, which ruled that a president should receive “presumptive immunity from prosecution for all of his official acts.”

“In this climate, skepticism is understandable about whether the Supreme Court will uphold and enforce long-standing precedent,” Lawrence-Hardy said. “However, when it comes to certification, both the law and the practical realities of election administration dictate that certification should remain a nondiscretionary function of our officials.”

If pro-Trump members of the Georgia Election Commission refuse to certify the election results, a judge could fine them or even throw them in jail, Lawrence-Hardy said.

“Judges have a lot of discretion, particularly when someone defies a court order, such as a certification order, by holding the person in contempt of court,” she said.

The voices of blacks in Georgia

The attempt to change the voting rules less than three months before the next presidential election is an attempt by pro-Trump Republicans to undermine the electoral power of black voters in Georgia, Groh-Wargo said.

She pointed out that the vote in majority-black Clayton County, which is part of civil rights legend John Lewis' former congressional district, is attributed to Joe Biden's victory over Trump in the Peach State. Biden received more than 94,000 votes in Clayton County in 2020 – nearly 85% of all votes cast in the county. This year, he won Georgia by 11,779 votes.

“This is, period, a voter denial and voter suppression conspiracy aimed at successfully doing what they failed to do last time, which was to throw out 11,700 black Georgian votes,” Groh-Wargo said. “The public discourse this winter has been about the power of Georgia's black voters in this swing state with the majority of African Americans.”

Vote early – and bring a friend

Groh-Wargo said the most important thing voters should do this fall is to cast their ballots and urge others to do the same. She encouraged Georgia residents to vote early so they have time to fix any issues that may arise before Election Day on Nov. 5.

Voting rights activists are urging voters to regularly check their registration status online and make sure they are registered by Georgia's Oct. 7 deadline. Early voting in this year's presidential election begins Oct. 15 and ends Nov. 1.