A Republican-sponsored bill introduced Friday would empower the State Election Board to investigate Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a response to the board’s decision last month not to open an inquiry.
The measure would also remove Raffensperger, a Republican, as a nonvoting member of the State Election Board and require him to cooperate with investigations.
The legislation, Senate Bill 358, comes after the board deadlocked on whether to pursue complaints by conservative activists who blame Raffensperger for human errors in Fulton County’s manual audit of the 2020 election. The problems, including over 3,000 double-counted and misallocated votes, didn’t change the overall outcome of the statewide audit, which confirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win over Republican Donald Trump.
“It is time for the secretary of state to be held reasonably accountable, like all other elected officials,” said Senate Ethics Chairman Max Burns, a Republican from Sylvania whose committee handles election bills.
Though the State Election Board declined to investigate Raffensperger, it voted unanimously to ask the Georgia General Assembly to clarify whether it had the authority to do so.
A spokesman for Raffensperger’s office called the proposal a “complete and total lapse of judgment” but declined to further comment Friday.
House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican from Newington, also endorsed giving the State Election Board independent oversight of elections but said this week that he didn’t intend to investigate Raffensperger, the state’s chief elections officer.
The legislation introduced Friday is a continuation of measures that would weaken Raffensperger and strengthen the State Election Board. The General Assembly previously removed Raffensperger as the board’s chairman as part of Georgia’s 2021 voting law, Senate Bill 202.
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