In our tight-knit Holly Springs community, a neighbor took to our group chat to ask if anyone knew why police were constantly patrolling our typically safe streets. The notably increased presence of patrol cars in October raised alarm bells that danger lurked in our midst.
I could have responded with a well-worn Taylor Swift lyric: It’s me, hi. I’m the problem. It’s me.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
The police were keeping an eye out for me — a service for which my family and I are deeply grateful — because of a handful of death threats against me sent through texts and calls. One angry man told me he was targeting me. Another said I’d never see them coming. Sure, it seems far-fetched, but a husband and father can’t take chances.
These threats stemmed from an invisible army angry that I sued the state to stop implementation of last-minute election rule changes by only three State Election Board members. They believed, incorrectly it turned out, that my suit would hurt President-elect Donald Trump’s chances in Georgia’s election.
I won the lawsuit, and Trump won the state.
During my eight-year tenure in the state House, I became known as one of the most conservative Republicans, a designation that didn’t always win friends with those in leadership at the time. I believe in and fight for limited government and reining in the administrative state.
Those conservative principles are what drove my decision to sue the State Election Board over election rule changes it implemented in the months leading up to the election. Federal case law prevents rule changes close to an election for obvious reasons: They can create confusion and chaos among election administrators.
The suit resulted in a Fulton County court tossing all of the recent rule changes and a unanimous state Supreme Court keeping our victory in place while the appeal is pending. The rules that the court struck down included requirements to hand count ballots at the end of the night — a change that would have drastically slowed results and increased opportunities for human error. Another change raised concerns that it might embolden local election board members to refuse to certify election results, a move that would have empowered local election board members of either party to potentially reject their counties’ votes. It was a shortsighted move by these fellow Republicans who didn’t consider that most Georgia voters live in high-population counties controlled by Democrats.
My objection, however, had nothing to do with the substance or merits of the rule changes. As a conservative, I believe that unelected boards have no authority to pass rules that go beyond what our constitutionally elected officials put into law. State statutes, including the broadly popular SB 202 passed in 2021, clearly lay out how lawmakers want our elections administered. Three unelected people should not be allowed to seize lawmaking authority from our legislators to alter or expand our laws.
If State Election Board members see a need for updates to our election laws, they have the opportunity in the 2025 legislative session to make recommendations to our elected representatives to pass a bill. The legislative committee process would allow local election officials to testify on how the changes would impact their operations, such as the need for time to train and implement the changes in a way that is uniform and minimizes the chances for errors, which would erode voter confidence. The hand recount requirement pushed by the SEB, for example, would require a significant increase in personnel and man-hours across roughly 2,300 polling locations, a massive burden the board tried to implement with just a few weeks to prepare.
Trump won Georgia by a margin that’s huge compared to 2020′s 11,780 votes, but it was still one of the closest margins in the country. Yet everyone accepted the results, meaning the SEB rules were completely unnecessary.
That’s the irony of the Trump supporters’ attack on me over the lawsuit. By preventing last-minute changes from an unelected body, our court victory strengthened the credibility of Trump’s win in Georgia.
We have an election system that’s working and has the faith of our citizens, with rules written by legislators we elect, overseen by a secretary of state we elect and administered by county officials answerable to commissioners we elect locally.
In the upcoming legislative session, the General Assembly should seize the chance to stick up for its own authority as the democratically elected lawmakers of our state and rein in unelected and unaccountable boards trying to usurp that duty.
Scott Turner is the founder, chairman and executive director of Eternal Vigilance Action.
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