Georgia’s 16 Republican electors formally cast their ballots for Donald Trump and JD Vance in a no-frills ceremony Tuesday at the Capitol that sharply contrasted with the contentious vote that shook up state politics four years ago.
The group of electors, made up of activists but no big-name politicians, dispatched of their constitutional duty within about an hour, punctuating the process with a celebratory speech from state GOP Chair Josh McKoon about the returning president’s triumph in Georgia.
“This is one of the final chapters of the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America,” said McKoon, who told the electors they would be forever sealed in the National Archives as an indelible “part of our country’s story for as long as there is a United States.”
The GOP contingent gathered before a bank of cameras and party officials in the state Senate chambers to formally cement Trump’s victory in Georgia, a state he easily carried in 2016, narrowly lost in 2020 and then recaptured in 2024.
In a sense, the vote was a return to the norm. Back in 2020, Democrats gathered in the same chambers amid threats of mass pro-Trump demonstrations to formally seal Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, making him the first Democrat to carry the state in nearly three decades.
At the same time they cast their ballots, a group of Trump allies who were under strict orders from his campaign to maintain their secrecy, convened in a second-floor Capitol conference room, declared themselves the “duly elected” slate and cast ballots for the Republican.
That vote set off a chain reaction that’s still reverberating today. Three of the GOP electors who cast ballots that day face charges in the ongoing Fulton County election interference case, and at least eight others struck immunity deals with District Attorney Fani Willis’ office in exchange for their testimony.
Another GOP elector, then-state Sen. Burt Jones, withstood attacks over his 2020 involvement in that vote to win election as Georgia’s lieutenant governor.
Willis was disqualified from pursuing charges against Jones after she hosted a fundraiser for his Democratic rival, and a special state prosecutor later decided against seeking an indictment.
The ceremony Tuesday was a crucial part of a process stamped in federal law. After each state certifies its results, electors must meet to officially cast their votes. On Jan. 6, Congress will tally the votes and confirm the results. Trump will be inaugurated Jan. 20.
On Tuesday, there was no talk from the Senate floor about what unfolded in 2020. Instead, McKoon welcomed the electors by highlighting what he called the “indignities” stacked against Trump.
McKoon, a former state senator comfortable speaking from the chamber’s floor, accused Trump’s enemies of a “perversion of the criminal justice system” to level charges against him, and he brought up the two assassination attempts against Trump earlier this year as proof of his commitment to office.
He also reached further back into recent history, mentioning how the Republican contingent from Georgia was under siege in 2016 to withhold votes from Trump after his stunning victory. Each of those electors promptly voted for Trump, though one recused himself months earlier and was replaced.
“It’s not like it was eight years ago, in 2016, when many of our electors were subjected to very unpleasant campaigns and threats,” McKoon said. “Today, it’s running like clockwork. It’s running like it should. And that’s a beautiful thing.”
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