Why GA’s 'out of control' election board may 'disenfranchise its own citizens': legal expert

Once considered deep red, Georgia has evolved into a true swing state in recent years.

Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are conservative Republicans who were both reelected in the 2022 midterms, but Georgia also has two Democratic U.S. senators (Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock). And President Joe Biden narrowly won the state in 2020.

Now, in 2024, polls are showing a very close presidential race in the Peach State. Bloomberg News/Morning Consult found Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in a tie in late July, and the candidates were still tied in an AARP poll released on August 8.

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But MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, in an August 9 column, warns that the Georgia State Election Board could "disenfranchise its own citizens" in November.

"As my colleague Ja'han Jones explained, Georgia's State Election Board, a five-member body controlled by fervent Donald Trump loyalists, adopted a rule allowing local election boards to conduct a 'reasonable inquiry' before certifying election results — a task that, pursuant to Georgia statutory law, has long been understood to be mandatory and ministerial," Rubin explains. "The State Election Board failed to define what constitutes a 'reasonable inquiry' and suggested — again, in contrast to plain language in Georgia law requiring counties to certify this year's election results by November 12 — that such inquiries could justify failing to certify by that date, or any specific date."

Georgia is one of the states that Trump lost in 2020 but falsely claimed that he won — a claim debunked by careful vote recounts and rejected by Kemp and Raffensperger, both of whom maintained that Biden's victory was perfectly legitimate. But Rubin laments that Trump allies have removed Raffensperger from the Georgia Election Board "entirely."

"It's clear, with under 90 days to go before the 2024 general election, that something is amiss in Georgia election administration," the MSNBC legal analyst warns. "But it's not the results of the 2020 election, the conduct of Fulton County, or the actions of Trump's favorite Peach State punching bag, Brad Raffensperger. Rather, the (Georgia) State Election Board is out of control — and it could be that only litigation will stop it from disenfranchising its own citizens."

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Lisa Rubin's full MSNBC column is available at this link.