🧵GA @GaSecofState and Fulton GOP leaders want to take over Fulton Cty. Elections. This is a very dangerous idea for every GA voter and candidate, regardless of party.
This thread will explain the dishonest claims that SOS and RNC are making in court defending takeovers. 1/
2/ These excerpts are from brief we @CoalitionGoodGv filed last night as part of fighting SB202, including the takeover provisions.
RNC has intervened and defends the takeover w/ SOS.
We show their dishonesty and outrageous claims.
Link to full brief at end.
3/ RNC claims that there are 7 "protections" of the board (but they do not exist.) In fact the facts are the opposite of what RNC claims:
4/ These arguments relate to whether under SB202 the county board members ("superintendent") being removed by the St. Bd are given Due Process as US Constitutional demands.
5/ The answer of course is NO, but notice how the RNC tries to tell the Court something different.
The full board can be fired even if they were not on board when rule violations occurred.
The St. Bd can fast track the removal and not do performance review.
6/ There is no requirement for the individual board member to even get a notice of the hearing where he might be removed, or even have the chance to defend himself.
7/ For counties like Chatham Co. (+ about 40 small counties) with a Bd of Registration (charged with voter reg. & absentee balloting), St. Board can fire registrar based on violations of the "superintendent" --an unrelated entity.
And then registrar's office stays vacant!
8/ They don't even promise not to do such an egregious thing
9/ They even say it's good policy that is justified!
10/ What happens if citizens push back on the SOS?
Four of our 14 plaintiffs are now under investigation by SOS. Just coincidence or retribution?
11/ When @dufort_jeanne discovered the errors in the ballot scanners that were not counting all the votes and stood up publicly to the SOS, it was just a matter of time before she would become the target.
We are fighting hard against several more unconstitutional provisions of SB202 as well. ⬇️⬇️
13/ We are basically the only group challenging these dangerous provisions of takeover and shutdown of transparency.
Please help our very small org. taking on the big guys! bit.ly/CGGDonate
14/ To show you how outrageous the retaliation is, check out the video that Plaintiff Antwan Lang is under investigation for! Anyone see any criminal violation here? Ridiculous! facebook.com/antwan.lang/vi…
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Thanks, @cklaus1 for focus on this! Perhaps now it will get attention it has needed. The press has repeatedly declined to cover this, and written it off as nothing new or important. There was opportunity to mitigate, and GA SOS just laughed it off and made jokes about it. 1/
2/ This extreme democracy-threatening vulnerability could have been easily mitigated by using hand marked paper ballots, counted by scanners with robust post-election audits. But states with this vulnerability are certifying the Nov election w/o even checking, ignoring the risk.
3/ Even now, the Sen. Bob Casey PA recount should heed this and demand a hand recount, not machine recount! It’s so simple, but would take 2-3 days. Officials don’t want to be bothered. 70% of PA voters voted by hand marked ballots. Just count them, independent of software!
"No concerns" about the "consistent" ballot secrecy problems that the St. Elec. Bd. Chair is finally acknowledging after refusing for years to deal with this violation of voters' constitutional rights and violating GA and federal law. 🧵1/
3/ The problem rarely can be remedied in the polling place. Turning machines to wall often allows a voter aisle way so that passing voters see vote displays of others. Sadly, SOS/ SEB pressure has "normalized" this constitutional violation.
Hey, @bluestein, @markniesse , can you explain why Dems and officials are against this rule to account for the NUMBER of ballots (not votes!) before sending the ballots and memory cards to HQ?
It is standard requirement in most states, including bluest of states. 1/
2/ Ballots are often found in scanner write-in bins, emergency bins, scanner crevices long after the election. Test ballots are found in scanners. The right time to collect and RECONCILE and account for all ballots is before workers and watchers leave the polls.
3/ If I were poll worker and told to take ballots to office from polling place and no one would inventory them to count the number of ballots they were giving me before I left ,I would refuse the job. I don't want to be responsible for bringing too few or too many!
Coffee County again! It appears that the Bd. of Commissioners is trying to block the Bd. of Elections from initiating an independent investigation of the massive voting system breaches.
2/ The theft of the voting system software that Trump's allies arranged and paid for has never been meaningfully investigated.
Sec. Raffensperger and St. Elec. Bd told the federal court in 2022 that there was "active and ongoing" investigation, but that was false!
3/ SOS investigator testified in court that he was told to "open a file, but hold off" on actually investigation. No investigation was done.
Eventually, they gave it to GBI to do criminal part of the investigation, but did nothing on the security issues or civil violations.
The debate about the Fulton Co. lawsuit on certification continues to lack context of how GA elections work. The progressive groups opposing the fundamentals of this lawsuit may be find it backfires on them. They really don't want what they seem to be asking for here. 1/
2/ Yes, while certification is SUPPOSED to be "ministerial" and required if there is an accurate canvass of votes, the opponents don't understand that GA doesn't have meaningful canvassing. An election board should NOT just blindly sign whatever pops out of the machines!
3/ The Sec. of State office has no required forms or procedures for canvassing. We often see that the number of voters is not reconciled to the number of ballots. It is not unusual to find AFTER certification, stray memory cards of ballots or ballots left in scanner not counted.
GA voters are getting alerts in top right corner of their MVP's like below. For many voters, the message is NOT TRUE. ✖️ Ineligible voters are getting this message too.
Why did SOS do this? 🤷♀️ Ask him. 1/
2/ You can vote in a runoff contest in the same party you voted in during the May primary. You cannot switch parties for the runoff. If you voted only nonpartisan ballot or did not vote, you can vote in either party's runoff. For example....
3/ If you voted a D ballot in May, but the only county runoff is the R sheriff's primary, you are not permitted to vote in the runoff. If you voted an R ballot or nonpartisan ballot, or did not vote at all, you CAN vote in the R sheriff's runoff.