Lots of folks love a good conspiracy, and the right-wing core of the State Election Board is vowing to give them what they want.
The three election board members whom President Donald Trump once called “pit bulls” want to revive a golden oldie: that there was conniving and fraud in the 2020 election, the one Trump lost but can’t let go.
They voted last week to ask state officials to re-revisit an investigation into Fulton County’s handling of that election, even calling for the Department of Justice to step in.
It’s a spurious ploy to get Trump’s team to wade in and start connecting dots that conspiracists have been yelling about for years. I suppose they will; this gives them an in.
And why not reopen the Lindbergh baby kidnapping while they’re at it?
The real effort is to keep feeding the Taurus excretus needed to fuel Trump’s juggernaut of dishonesty, an alternate universe where elections are stolen, middling inaugural crowds are HUGE! and disappointing jobs numbers are not that at all.
The big guy even conflated 2020 with a lackluster jobs report last week, one that cost the statistician-in-chief her job.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
“Last weeks Job’s Report was RIGGED, just like the numbers prior to the Presidential Election were Rigged,” Trump said.
Going forward, bureaucrats will think twice about bringing forth unwelcome news. From now on, truth will be whatever Trump says it is. And if you want to exist in today’s GOP biosphere, please tag along and spout the party line, no matter how far from reality it extends.
The 2020 election is the president’s Great White Whale, with Georgia at the center of the grievance and Fulton its nucleus. That’s where the “suitcases full of ballots” and “counterfeit ballots” were found.
Except they weren’t.
Granted, there were mistakes. There was a flood of absentee ballots brought on by fears of the pandemic, there were new voting machines (incidentally, brought on by state Republicans), and it was, ultimately, Fulton doing what Fulton often does — screwing up.
But there was no grand fraudulent conspiracy.
Still, the 2020 election remains the Mount Everest of balderdash, with a substantial number of the MAGA faithful buying in and “leaders” dutifully going along.
The three right-wing members of the five-member election board are simply foot soldiers in that effort.
Now, my colleague Mark Niesse, who earns his pay covering this nonsense day in and day out, says supporters of the three don’t like their heroes being called “right wing.” But, as they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and has oily feathers, then it’s a right-wing duck.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Dr. Janice Johnston, an obstetrician by training and the leader of that flock, sprung the resolution to dredge up 2020 at the end of a two-day marathon board meeting.
Sara Tindall Ghazal, the board’s Democratic appointee, was visibly shocked at getting the paperwork at Hour 8, Day 2. She noted that since Johnson “had the time to type this up and make copies of it,” she might have given the two non-MAGA board members more than five minutes to absorb it.
Johnston mumbled something about this being the earliest she could put it together and that she had asked Fulton for records that she had not yet received.
That case is still in court.
Johnston did not get back to me.
Board member Janelle King said the board is not revisiting 2020. “We are getting answers to questions that were raised before and after 2020.”
King said Fulton is withholding “data that is supposed to be available to the public” and that “it sets a bad precedent when we have to subpoena a county to obtain public records.”
The election board did, in fact, investigate the case. In May of 2024, it reprimanded Fulton and asked for a monitor to be put in place for elections.
“There were multiple investigations conducted by the Secretary of State’s office and by the election board,” said former board member Ed Lindsey. “We determined that mistakes were made (by Fulton election officials). There were things that happened that were of concern. I wouldn’t call it malfeasance.”
However, Lindsey, a lawyer and former Republican legislator, was not MAGA enough, so he was bounced from the board last year and replaced by King.
John Fervier, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, voted a “strong nay” against revisiting 2020 because he knows nonsense when he sees it.
I mean, no matter how much “digging” there is, there will never be enough to answer those who say Trump got cheated.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Josh McKoon, another lawyer and former legislator, is the leader of the state’s GOP and has expressed his “unwavering solidarity” to the board’s effort.
The problem, he said, “is the refusal of the judicial branch to do its job and do a full inquiry.”
I’ve known McKoon for years and have found him to be a dutifully conservative fellow and generally not crazy. I told him the efforts to keep “investigating” 2020 border on, to be kind, the fanciful.
“As chairman of the Republican Party, I come in contact with a lot of people who tell me they have questions and doubts about 2020 election results,” he said, adding, “People want to get to the bottom of what happened. I don’t think that’s crazy.”
I get it. As a leader in the GOP these days, you have to roll with the crowd carrying the pitchforks and torches.
Or else they’ll be coming for you.
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