Panel that reviewed Fulton elections sees need to change state’s takeover process

Three officials who studied Fulton County elections see no reason to shift control of its voting to the state. It’s the review process, they said, that needs to change.

The performance review panel — Ryan Germany, the former general counsel to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; Stephen Day, a Democrat on the Gwinnett County elections board; and Rickey Kittle, the Republican chairman for the Catoosa County elections board — opposes a state takeover of Fulton’s elections because the county has made significant improvements since the 2020 vote.

But the three men who spent a year and a half on the Fulton inquiry said future reviews should be handled differently.

Republican state legislators started the process, the first step in a potential state takeover of elections as part of an overhaul of the state’s voting laws that the GOP-led General Assembly approved in response to the 2020 presidential election.

Fulton, the home to Georgia’s largest number of Democratic voters, is the only county in the state that has undergone such a review, which can be launched by legislators from an area. No other lawmakers have sought state intervention in their own counties, including in Coffee County, where computer analysts aided Republican supporters of then-President Donald Trump and copied election software in January 2021.

“It’s difficult to see how this process is sustainable and can continue to positively influence election administration in Georgia without some reforms,” Day said.

He suggested that the General Assembly provide funding for four or five people who could assess counties across the state year-round.

Day, Germany and Kittle were volunteers. They said they were only able to conduct a thorough investigation with the help of the Carter Center, which contributed 64 independent, nonpartisan election observers.

The panel found no indications of fraud or dishonesty in Fulton’s 2020 election results, and it cited improvements in training, processes and procedures since then.

But the panel did find problems in the 2020 primary and general election, including long lines amid the COVID-19 pandemic and process errors during an audit that recounted all paper ballots by hand.

Its report also confirmed an allegation that almost 200 ballots were counted twice during the first vote count of the presidential election, as first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in July 2021.

The State Election Board is expected to vote in April on the panel’s recommendation not to take over Fulton’s elections.