How Georgia’s pro-Trump election board could help him steal an election

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} At a rally in Georgia days before a crucial vote at the state’s election board, Donald Trump praised three of the board’s five members as “pit bulls fighting for victory.” “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Georgia State Election Board is in a very positive way,” Trump said in Atlanta on August 3. Election workers are under an “incredible amount of undue pressure” from voter suppression threats, Park explained, and the “brazen effort in which unelected partisans have taken over the local elections boards, where elected leaders have conceded to their base, to the far right, in continuing to base changes on fear and conspiracy theories.” Donald Trump speaks to supporters in Atlanta on August 3 The pro-Trump majority on Georgia’s election board has drawn national scrutiny for a rule that allows county boards to make “reasonable inquiries” before certifying election results. “That’s why we’re fighting back, and we will beat them in court like we will beat them at the ballot box this fall.” Georgia governor inquires whether he can remove MAGA election board members after series of alarming votes State-level changes to election administration in the wake of 2020’s election denialism are a “democracy catastrophe and an ethics disaster,” according to legal scholars Norm Eisen and Richard Painter. Georgia congresswoman Lucy McBath joined state lawmakers who spoke out against the state’s election board after sweeping rule changes that could imperil certification Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — famously on the receiving end of Trump’s call to “find” enough votes to win the state in 2020 — has also criticized the election board’s certification rules, and that the board’s three Trump-allied members Johnston, King, and Jeffares have engaged in “activist rule-making” that would “undermine voter confidence and burden election workers.” Governor Brian Kemp has also asked state attorney general Chris Carr to determine whether he has authority over ethics complaints directed at the board.