A furor has erupted in Georgia over the Aug. 29 launch of a controversial fundraising campaign for the State Election Board (SEB). The crowdfunding effort was started by “Friends of the Georgia State Election Board” led by Kylie Kremer, executive director of Women for America First, acting in her personal capacity. The group has a stated goal of raising over a half million dollars to help fund the general activities of the board, and their efforts have rekindled debate over the struggle for control of the board and its semi-independence from the secretary of state.
The reason for this outside funding effort is that, while the board is dealing with a firestorm of criticism from Democrats, it is also being deliberately hamstrung by some Republicans. In particular, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp, and Attorney General Chris Carr have been impeding the board, according to Kremer and donor comments left on her fundraising page.
Raffensperger has recently become openly critical of the board he once chaired over rulemaking and other actions he opposes. Raffensperger has been fiercely criticized by election integrity advocates for his lax handling of the 2020 election. Ironically, one of Georgia election integrity advocates’ biggest criticisms of Raffensperger is his enabling of $41 million in private funding for state election offices, via the controversial “Zuckbucks” grants. Critics say that huge amount of cash allowed partisan operatives to use state resources to run get-out-the-vote operations for Democrats and ultimately narrowly swung the election for President Joe Biden.
Raffensperger has also been accused by election integrity activists — many of whom are former supporters turned critics — like me, Jason Frazier, Kevin Moncla, David Cross, and others — of deliberately suppressing legitimate and consequential cases brought to his office in order to prevent them from being heard by the SEB. Worse, the statute of limitations for many of the 2020 election law violations alleged in those cases will soon expire.
In an email sent to Anna Bower, Senior Editor at Lawfare, which she then posted on X, SEB Chairman John Fervier said the board “has no association with any outside group reportedly raising funds” and “will not be accepting any funds that are raised by outside organizations or groups.”
Board member Dr. Jan Johnston tells me she concurs, adding that “While the State Election Board certainly does need additional funding, it must be done through the proper channels.”
But with Georgia reportedly running a budget surplus of over $2 billion, the most obvious question here is, “Why is this happening?” And that is often followed with, “Can the board even accept the money?”
What Could Go Wrong?
In 2021, Georgia passed SB202 which removed the secretary of state as the chair of the SEB, but left him in an ex-officio capacity. That was followed by SB189 in 2024, which then completely removed the secretary of state from the State Election Board. It was a move Secretary Raffensperger and his supporters stridently opposed but his critics applauded.
However, the SEB has yet to gain complete independence from the secretary of state or his office. As examples, it is currently forced to rely on the secretary of state’s office for investigations, even those involving the the secretary’s own mishandling of cases like mine, because it does not have an investigator of its own. The board also lacks legal counsel of its own, as well as operational control of its own website.
That fact later became consequential when the board was unable to complete its business by the end of the July 9, 2024 meeting, and was subsequently also unable to “return from recess” the following morning. Chairman Fervier, who reportedly attempted to reconvene the meeting “without consulting GOP board members about any potential scheduling conflicts,” then, at least arguably, lacked a quorum.
For context, it is important to note here that although the SEB has adopted rules, it has no formal bylaws and seems to adhere only intermittently to Robert’s Rules of Order. Also, at that point in time, the board had just taken actions in the July 9 meeting that were strongly opposed by Chairman Fervier and Democrat Party appointee Sarah Ghazal — and unless the meeting was formally concluded, the decisions they opposed would have been rendered null and void.
OCGA 21-2-30 (e) permits a board meeting to be called by any two members, and it appears board members Dr. Jan Johnston, Janelle King, and Rick Jeffares attempted a return from recess on July 12 on that basis. But Chairman Fervier, considered by election integrity activists to be loyal to Raffensperger and Kemp, who appointed him, attempted to block that effort, and as a result no notice of the meeting was posted on the SEB’s website by the secretary of state.
So arguably, even if the board did control its own website, without clearer internal rules to follow, whether notice ultimately would have been posted on the website still remains in doubt.
That said, notice was posted on the door of Room 341 and other locations in the State Capitol where the board usually meets, participants were also notified, and word of the rescheduling spread like wildfire via social media, email, and texts. The meeting ultimately did resume on July 12, without Fervier or Ghazal in attendance, and unruly, disruptive, and partisan critics showed up, some carrying signs claiming, “This meeting is illegal!”
They were quick to voice their displeasure over the lack of notice posted on the website and alleged that the board had lacked a quorum, which is debatable because the board did have a quorum when the meeting originally convened. But a few days later a lawsuit was filed by “American Oversight,” a “liberal-leaning watchdog group,” seeking injunctive relief against the board.
Following the controversy and after giving proper notice, Chairman Fervier briefly reconvened the board on July 30, this time avoiding critics by meeting entirely online using Microsoft “Teams.” The meeting was essentially a “do over” of the meeting from July 12, and once again the board formally concluded its business from July 9.
Is all this really about a website?
There is a general narrative surrounding the board’s lack of funding for a website that says it was “removed by a line-item veto” from Kemp. But as Kremer explained in a statement she provided to me, that was not done in the original budget:
While the State Legislature allocated $513,018 to the SEB for 2024, not all of it has been disbursed. It is being held up by Governor Kemp’s Office of Planning and Budget. The Governor himself used a line-item veto to delete an allocation of $25,000 (leaving a budget of $489,095 for 2024) for the State Election Board to establish a website to help inform Georgia voters about its actions and proceedings.
Furthermore, members of the SEB are using Gmail accounts to communicate, as they have not been issued official state email accounts. This raises questions as to whether board members can properly comply with Georgia’s Sunshine Laws.
Many Georgians still have strongly-held reservations about the integrity of the state’s elections. To help assuage those concerns, the State Election Board should be fully funded immediately by Governor Kemp’s OPB, so it can execute its responsibilities on behalf of Georgia’s citizens. Time is of the essence.
Kremer told me, and her group states on its “Give Send Go” page:
All funds raised will not be transferred until they can be transferred straight into an account owned by the Georgia State Election Board (SEB). If for some reason they are not permitted to take the money, every dollar will be refunded.
Although the board could certainly put the crowdsourced money to effective use, based on the statements from Chairman Fervier and Kylie Kremer, as well as my conversations with election integrity activists and attorneys, it appears there is disagreement over whether the SEB can currently accept the funds. Of course, the general assembly could formally authorize them to do that when it reconvenes in January if it wishes.
So instead of taking gradual baby steps towards the SEB’s independence, perhaps it is time for the legislature to “rip the band aid off,” formally divorce the SEB and secretary of state, and give the board oversight of the secretary as well as the resources it needs to keep both offices functioning smoothly.
But in the meantime, Georgia is clearly headed into the 2024 general election with an obviously dysfunctional relationship between the two, while many of the issues from 2020 remain unresolved.
Mark Davis is president of Data Productions, Inc., and has been working with voter data since 1986. He has been qualified and admitted to testify as an expert witness on voter data analytics and residency issues in court cases involving disputed elections five times over the last 20 years. Follow him @MarkDavisGOP.
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