Republicans who refused to certify previous elections voted Tuesday to approve Donald Trump’s victory in Georgia, but some criticized a state law and court order requiring them to do so.
The unanimous votes by county election boards across Georgia made the results official, a mandatory step in the process before winning candidates can take office and losing candidates can request recounts or contest the outcome in court.
Julie Adams, a Republican on Fulton County’s election board, said it was “ridiculous” that she was required to certify after a judge ruled last month that election board members had a duty to certify results. Adams, who refused to certify this spring’s primaries, had filed a lawsuit arguing that she could vote against certifying.
“It’s funny — I don’t know who won a lot of these races,” said Adams, who wanted more details to compare voter check-ins with results. “I have no idea what I just voted ‘yes’ to, but I have a court order that I have to.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Aaron Johnson, a Democratic appointee to the Fulton election board, said the board conducted an extensive precertification review of the documents, which included statements of votes cast, election night reports, memory card chain-of-custody reports, voter lists, ballot scanner tapes and absentee ballot documentation. The board spent Thursday, Friday and Tuesday reviewing documents.
“We have to certify what we believe the numbers are,” Johnson said. “That doesn’t give us the ability to supersede the law. There are things we have to do.”
While Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in certifying the election this time, they increasingly had opposed approving election results since Democrat Joe Biden won in 2020, raising objections based on their concerns about perceived discrepancies and access to documents.
At least 19 county election board members refused to certify results over the past four years, according to a statewide survey by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Though they voted to certify on Tuesday, some Republicans said they’ll ask the Georgia General Assembly to change the law, giving them more time to review data before signing off on results. State law requires county election boards to certify elections one week after Election Day.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
In Gwinnett County, Republican appointee David Hancock supported certifying results this year after he had previously voted against certifying the results of a primary this year because he didn’t receive documents he wanted to review until after the deadline.
Hancock said this year’s results were “pretty close” despite some discrepancies across the county’s 156 precincts. He received the documents he requested but didn’t have time to review them all. He said the General Assembly should give local boards until the second Friday after an election to certify.
“It’s such a rushed process,” Hancock said. “Give us a little more time.”
This year’s election wasn’t as tight as in 2020, with Trump defeating Democrat Kamala Harris by about 117,000 votes in Georgia.
Four years ago, three vote counts showed Biden won by about 12,000 votes, and investigations have repeatedly discredited allegations of widespread fraud that could have changed the result. Investigations found some errors, such as over 3,000 double-scanned ballots in a recount in Fulton.
Michael Heekin, a Republican appointee to the Fulton election board, also called for the General Assembly to change the state’s certification law.
“I take issue with the fact that this is a purely ministerial duty,” said Heekin, who had proposed an election rule requiring an inquiry before certifying results. “We should be at least one of the lines of defense in examining the goodness and the accuracy of the election.”
In Spalding County, a Republican-leaning area south of Atlanta, the election board unanimously certified the results before finishing a hand count that it had requested, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from Yoshunda Jones, a Spalding resident. A Republican board member who had previously voted against certification, Roy McClain, was absent.
Jones said election board members had previously given “passionate, Academy Award-winning speeches” about the importance of hand counts before certification.
“All of a sudden, since I guess their candidate of choice won this particular time, they decided not to do that,” Jones said.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
In Cobb County, Republican election board member Debbie Fisher, who voted not to certify election results last year because of “data inconsistencies” that were corrected, voted “yes, with some reservations” on Tuesday.
Election board members in DeKalb County — a heavily Democratic area — also unanimously voted to certify.
The DeKalb certification vote included Republicans Nancy Jester and Anthony Lewis, who objected to certifying results in past elections.
The unanimous DeKalb vote to certify came after board members asked about any errors uncovered in the election’s aftermath, such as questions about voter registrations and a voter who returned an absentee envelope without a ballot inside.
The number of voting issues this election wasn’t abnormal, DeKalb Elections Director Keisha Smith said.
“It’s something that happens with every election,” Smith said. “I don’t think the number of times this occurs raises alarms on a critical level. This is something we expect to happen.”
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled last month that county election board members must finalize results as part of their jobs, and they’re not allowed to refuse to do so based on suspicions of miscounts or fraud.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, pledged to certify statewide results for this year’s election on Nov. 22, as he did four years ago when Biden won.
“I said from the beginning some people will be happy about the election results and some will be sad,” Raffensperger said. “But the fact is that we won the House, the Senate and the presidency. And every single Georgian can take to the bank that these election results reflect the will of Georgia’s voters.”
— Staff writers Michelle Baruchman and Adam Van Brimmer contributed to this article.
About the Authors
