In Bloomberg: 'Brian Kemp Has Failed Georgia Voters'

For years, Governor Brian Kemp and his allies have boasted that he stood up to Donald Trump’s attempts steal the 2020 election, but now he is quietly abetting efforts by Trump’s allies on the State Election Board to lay the groundwork for Trump to deny Georgia’s 2024 election results, sow chaos, and fraudulently claim victory should he lose.

“For all his posturing about standing up to Trump’s election sabotage in 2020, Kemp is now giving him a pass to do exactly the same thing in 2024 via his ‘pitbulls’ on the State Election Board,” said DPG Executive Director Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye. “By allowing the MAGA majority on the board to change the rules to benefit Trump, the Governor is saying loud and clear that he’d rather protect Donald Trump than the will of Georgia voters.”

A new op-ed in Bloomberg points out that Governor Kemp has the power to remove three Trump-aligned members of the State Board of Elections who have passed last-minute, likely illegal election rules designed to help Trump, but is choosing to allow them to wreak havoc instead. 

Last month, three right-wing members of the Georgia State Election Board – whom Donald Trump previously championed as his “pitbulls” for “victory” at an August rally – approved an 11th-hour rule change requiring a hand count of all ballots on election night, which election officials say could delay results, raise the risk of disruptions and human errors, and undermine confidence in the election. Republican Attorney General Chris Carr has indicated that the new rules are likely illegal. The pitbulls’ latest rule change comes after the same three members rammed through a rule giving themselves a new superpower to refuse to certify the election if they don’t like the results.

Kemp is now going out of his way to protect the SEB MAGA majority from accountability. Leaders in the state legislature have filed an ethics complaint against the board members who are attempting to subvert democracy, which Governor Kemp is ignoring – despite the fact that Georgia state law requires the Governor to hear formal ethics complaints and remove elected officials who are found to have committed violations.

Read excerpts from the opinion piece from Bloomberg below:

Bloomberg Opinion: Brian Kemp Has Failed Georgia Voters

Mary Ellen Klas, September 27, 2024

Key Points:

• Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has the power to stop the partisan and likely illegal new rules created by three Donald Trump allies on the State Election Board. But instead of using his authority to halt an election-year meltdown that could turn November into a nightmare, Kemp has allowed the threat to fester for months.

• Georgia law allows the governor to remove from office anyone who violates the state’s constitution, something Georgia’s attorney general believes the board has done. The law requires the governor to provide members 30 days’ notice and hold a proper hearing, so time is running out for replacements to be appointed to fix the damage before the election. However, Kemp, who is widely believed to have future political aspirations and appears to want to avoid burning bridges with Trump and his MAGA supporters, has chosen to do nothing. […]
  
  
• Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, told the board in a letter that implementing the new rules related to hand-counting ballots exceeded its authority, undermined the secretary of state’s role, and “in some instances appear to conflict with the statutes governing the conduct of elections.” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, warned that the hand counts would increase the potential for error and that the rule likely wouldn’t survive a legal challenge.
  
  
• Trump desperately needs Georgia to win the Electoral College. He and his followers have clearly decided they can’t succeed by playing fairly, so they’re trying to rewrite the rules. Three State Election Board members, whom Trump praised at an August rally, voted to give election challengers new ways to introduce significant delays and potentially change the results before the final votes are certified. Emails between the board members and local election officials revealed their strategy.
  
  
• Then, last Friday, the Trump-aligned majority voted to require precinct workers to hand-count all the votes cast in the Nov. 5 election — likely about 5 million ballots — resulting in inevitable delays and legal conflicts over the final tally.
  
  
• The push to force hand-counting of ballots stems from false claims that audited electronic voting equipment is unreliable. It also is an unfunded mandate.
  
  
• Kemp was secretary of state before he became governor and knows that hand-counting ballots is a bad idea. The process is used most effectively in small jurisdictions with fewer than 1,000 voters. Human ballot counters must be hired and trained. They get tired. They make mistakes, and state officials will need to hire enough of them to make sure the job is done before the federal certification deadline on Dec. 11. But the Election Board has no power to allocate additional money for Georgia’s 2,400 precincts to hire additional poll workers for the job, or security teams to protect them.
  
  
• Kemp spokesman Garrison Douglas told me that the governor hasn’t acted because “there have been no formal charges filed that would trigger the governor’s statutory authority to take action on these matters.”
  
  In fact, multiple complaints have been filed, including by the former Fulton County Election Board chairperson, but Kemp doesn’t consider them “formal” enough. On Wednesday, state Senator Nabilah Islam Parkes, a Democrat, filed the latest “formal complaint” with Kemp’s office, demanding that he remove the three members — Janice Johnston, Janelle King and Rick Jeffares — for violating the state’s code of ethics and its Open Meetings Act. Meanwhile, a lawsuit was filed challenging the board’s certification rule, and a criminal complaint was filed with the Georgia Capitol Police. Georgia taxpayers will be footing the legal bill to defend the inept Election Board. […]
  
  
• Kemp is clinging to a facade of normalcy because of some perceived political advantage, but his relationship with Trump is dysfunctional. Trump insulted Kemp and his wife last month and then tried to recover by praising the governor on social media. Kemp scolded Trump for talking about the governor’s family and then, for appearance’s sake, flittered off to an Atlanta fundraiser for the former president. It’s ugly to watch.
  
  
• Yet, as Kemp remains silent, Trump’s allies have erected insurmountable barriers to a fair election in his state. It’s a bad trade-off, and it’s time for Kemp to bolt from this relationship before it’s too late to save his state — and the nation — from another round of election chaos.