Good grief. Are we going to do this again?
A member of the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections refused to certify the county’s May primary results and wants a court to decide that counties can simply refuse to certify election results.
New board member Julie Adams sued the elections board last week, claiming she’s prevented from accessing “essential election records materials and processes” that she needs to do her job. She also wants a court to decide that she doesn’t have to do her job — by stating that her duties are “discretionary,” not mandatory.
Nonsense.
Adams pointed to election administration problems in Fulton County and said she couldn’t certify an election without more information. She also called for “transparency.”
While we’d all agree that elections and their counting and certifications should be transparent, that’s not what this is about.
Instead, the suit is laying the foundation for a November redo of 2020′s stolen election claims should the presumptive Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump, lose.
“This is a transparent attempt to set the stage for that fight,” said U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Columbus. “The Democratic Party of Georgia will continue to combat Trump’s efforts to undermine our democracy and ensure local elections are certified, which is required by law.”
Adams abstained from certifying the May primary results because the elections board chair and the county elections director didn’t give her “access” to data she sought, including “lists of all qualified county electors showing those who signed in at polling locations as well as those who returned absentee ballots, the numbers of votes cast on particular machines and during advance voting, information on provisional and ‘drop box’ ballots, digital images of ballots as they were cast, and all absentee ballot applications and envelopes, among other data.”
Adams’s suit is being supported by the America First Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank founded by former Trump advisers. In March, the think tank announced that it would open state offices across the country. One of the first five opened right here in Georgia.
The Georgia office is led by former congressman Doug Collins, R-Gainesville.
Collins led claims of election fraud in Georgia in 2020 and was one of the 126 Republican House members who signed an amicus brief that contested the 2020 presidential election results.
Adams’s refusal to certify had no real effect. Fulton County’s primary results were certified by the rest of the board, including the board’s other Republican member, who said the documentation provided was helpful, though he noted the process could be smoother.
At the meeting last week, Adams referred in a written statement to “prior election administration problems” in Fulton County. “It’s time to fix the problems in our elections by ensuring compliance with the law, transparency in election conduct and accuracy in results.”
The county was reprimanded by the State Election Board this year for errors in the May 2022 primary, when it failed to count more than 1,300 votes. The county corrected and recertified the results in June 2022, and the discrepancy had no effect on any races.
The error was caught in a routine examination, and Fulton County Elections Director Nadine Williams immediately created reconciliation systems to ensure that the error can’t be repeated.
That is precisely the kind of reporting, checking and checking yet again that happens in every precinct, county and state in this country to ensure that our elections are safe.
That’s how we know that the 2020 election was not stolen.
And that’s how we will know that the 2024 election will not be stolen — no matter who claims otherwise.
The Editorial Board
