Georgia election board majority that was praised by Trump resumes rulemaking push this week

Georgia Election Board member Janice Johnston voted Sept. 23 in favor of the board opening an investigation into eight county boards that review mass voter eligibility challenges filed predominantly by conservative residents. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

The Georgia State Election Board will hold its first post-election meeting on Monday, where it is set to consider resuming its recent push to change Georgia's election rules and stir the debate anew about counties review controversial mass voter challenges.

The State Election Board meeting is scheduled to begin Monday morning with a public comment period where people can discuss the board's wishlist sketched out on a significantly condensed agenda, at least in contrast to marathon-length meetings recently held in a rush to enforce several new electoral rules by the Nov. 5th election.

On Nov. 5, President-elect Donald Trump won the election decisively in Georgia and six other swing states over Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, an outcome celebrated by Georgia Republicans waging the ongoing legal battle over the recent rulemaking of the State Election Board.

Three members of the board, Janelle King, Janice Johnston and Rick Jeffares, were publicly praised as "pit bulls" for victory at an Atlanta campaign rally by Trump this fall for their efforts to change the game for voters ahead of Georgia's November election.

On Monday's Georgia election board agenda are two rule amendment petitions filed by Lucia Frazier of Roswell, which would require each county to make public a list of all eligible voters during and after every election. Frazier wants the state board to mandate that counties post a numbered list of voters no later than five days after every primary, election, or run-off.

The file would include the name of every voter along with their voter ID, precinct, and check-in time and must be available for two years after the election.

"The intent of this petition is to have the State Election Board adopt a rule change to affirm existing Georgia law in that citizens of Georgia have access to all data generated in the process of elections," Frazier wrote .

In September, Frazier's husband, Republican activist Jason Frazier, retracted his lawsuit alleging Fulton County election officials failed to remove ineligible voters from their registration lists.

The State Election Board will continue the debate Monday following a report by Executive Director Mike Coan that assessed how election boards are handling mass voter challenges in Fulton and other metro Atlanta counties.

The Trump-aligned Georgia election board members all voted last month against their two colleagues to ask state lawmakers to update rules that would make it more difficult for county election boards to reject thousands of challenges to voters' eligibility.

With two new conservative board members appointed this year, the board meetings became the site of a heated debate over several election administration proposals pushed by the Republican majority.

Georgia's board, which has no direct role in determining election results, writes rules to ensure that elections run smoothly and hears complaints about alleged violations. The state Legislature creates laws that govern elections, a principle upheld as King, Johnston and Jeffares tried to advance their agenda since this summer.

Democrats and voting rights groups fear that a recently cemented majority of right-leaning Republican partisans on the board could push the limits of state law with rules hindering the effective administration of elections and the swift certification of results.

The Georgia Supreme Court has agreed to review the legality of several rules passed this year by Georgia election officials.

Georgia Supreme Court delays ruling on controversial election board rules until after Nov. 5

Madeline Summerville, an Atlanta-based attorney and political analyst, said she hopes the outcome of this November's election will lead to fewer petitions to change Georgia's election rules pushed at the election board's meetings, which have often been packed with people waving signs, demanding changes like a requirement for hand counts of paper ballots.

The 2024 general election will prove the current election administration protocols are working as intended and disprove widespread fraud claims, she said.

The upcoming Legislative session is likely the place where new election rules will be put in place, Summerville said.

"I think that in the future you are likely to see fewer of these pushes simply because the people who are pushing them got the outcome they wanted," she said. "But I do think the state Legislature will try to take up whatever the strongest arguments are and drop the rest."