Good day all. One of the states with some major issues regarding election security is the state of Georgia. I don’t need to go into the whole mess that was the Tainted Election of 2020, we all know that Georgia, or at least a couple of counties, rigged the vote.
Because the 2020 vote was questionable, President Trump called the governor and wanted them to find out what was going on and to verify the votes. (Simplistic version) This was used by the Democrats in one of their attempts to put their greatest political enemy in prison. We all know how that went.
Recently, the Georgia State Election Board wanted to witness the vote count of the recent elections. The State, not yet having figured out that they are on the wrong side of voter/election security and transparency, blocked them from doing so. Here are the details from the Federalist:
Members of the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) have been blocked from observing the compilation of vote totals in the state’s primary election this week, according to state GOP Chairman Josh McKoon, who demanded Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger reverse the decision.
McKoon called the denial of access to the Election Night Reporting Room “outrageous” and “an unacceptable assault on transparency and a direct threat to the integrity of Georgia’s elections.”
The secretary of state’s secure, centralized Election Night Reporting Room — known in Georgia election circles as “the Bunker” — is an underground facility on the east side of Atlanta where votes from Georgia’s 159 counties are aggregated in real time and statewide results are prepared for public release. On election nights, a small team of SOS staff monitors the process in a conference-room-style setting as final numbers roll in.
That seems a bit much. If I understand this correctly, all this place does is take in the results from all of the counties and puts them in a spreadsheet or some sort of electronic white board. Now I could be mistaken and this is where all the ballots are brought after the polls close so they can be counted, but I don’t believe this is the case. If I’m wrong, please not it in the comments section.
A sitting member of the SEB quickly amplified McKoon’s demand. Salleigh Grubbs, who also serves as the Georgia Republican Party’s first vice chair, posted that she was “shocked to be told that the final tabulation of Georgia votes … is done behind closed doors, without transparency, independent observation and accountability.”
“If there’s nothing to hide — you hide nothing,” Grubbs wrote, urging Georgians to contact the secretary of state’s office and demand observer access.
This doesn’t sound kosher to me. I decided to see what Grok had to say about this. Basically, I asked the following question:
How does the state of Georgia count/tabulate votes from across the state?”
This is a very simple and straightforward question. Grok provided a detailed answer with a lot more information that I didn’t find relevant. However, there was one section that provided an answer.
Counties certify their results and transmit them to the Georgia Secretary of State.
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- The Secretary of State’s office aggregates county totals and certifies the statewide results.
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- Deadlines: Counties generally certify by the Monday after the election; the state certifies shortly after (e.g., ~17 days for federal races).
The counties gather all the ballots from the various polling places and bring them to a central location to be counted. This is where most of the shenanigans seem to have taken place. I am rather surprised that the counties have a week to certify their count and the state has over two weeks for a federal election. In my opinion, the tallies should be certified in no more than 24 hours.
Holly Kesler, a prominent grassroots elections integrity advocate, followed with a detailed legal and practical call to action. She cited two specific statutes: O.C.G.A. § 21-2-408, which guarantees poll watchers access to polling places and tabulation centers, and O.C.G.A. § 21-2-30, which charges the SEB with “ensuring uniform, lawful, and transparent” elections. She encouraged supporters to call the secretary of state’s office at 404-656-2881 or email immediately to insist on full observer access to the Bunker “so every Georgian can have full confidence in the results.”
Raffensbutthead Raffensperger, the current secretary of state, as he was back in 2020, basically hid under his desk and sent out a minion.
In response to a request for comment, Raffensperger’s Communications Director Robert Sinners suggested reaching out to the attorney general’s office for a “formal opinion” with “written guidance.”
He stated that “Secretary Raffensperger had nothing to do with this decision, like most things he seems to get blamed for by simply having a backbone and standing up to nonsense.”
Is that what he calls Voter Fraud and Election Theft? Nonsense? Would he care to explain why the FBI and DoJ got a warrant and seized all the election materials going back to 2020 from Fulton County?
Sinners continued: “No tabulation happens at the location being mentioned. Not one ballot, not one count. If these SEB members were serious about their concerns, they would spend their time where the ballots are — at the tabulation centers in large counties on Election Day.”
So the question is, why block them? Are you hiding something?
The jab reflects the ongoing animosity and dysfunction between the board and the secretary of state’s office, which sometimes boils over into public comment.
Considering everything that’s happened over the last six years regarding that fiasco of a presidential election, I can’t say I’m surprised that the Secretary of State’s office is a bit defensive. There is also the question on this “Legal guidance” allegedly provided by the AG’s office. No one can find it. When Sinners was asked to provide it, he said call the SEB. So the Mark Davis, the author of the Federalist story, did just that.
When questioned about the matter, James Mills, the executive director of the SEB, explained that the board did ask some pointed questions of the AG’s office and received legal advice in return. However, that legal advice was private and subject to attorney-client privilege, rather than an official legal opinion of the attorney general. While the exact details of the counsel remain confidential, Salleigh Grubbs has since communicated publicly her impression that access effectively remains at the discretion of the secretary of state, “despite the official code of Georgia indicating otherwise.”
Even before this latest issue surfaced, election integrity activists were quick to point out that although votes are certified at the county level, Secretary Raffensperger is still overseeing the election he is a candidate in. And this latest denial of access fits a troubling pattern of transparency concerns in Georgia elections.
This was the same issues out in Arizona during their last gubernatorial election. The Secretary of State was running for Governor and didn’t recuse herself from her role overseeing that election. In fact, when a couple of counties said they were having issues, she flat out threatened them. (Side note. The primary was held and Ratface Raffensperger lost)
In 2020, Republican observers were sent away from ballot counting at State Farm Arena in Fulton County late on election night after a reported pipe burst, during which time processing continued without independent oversight.
That was when all those ballots voting for Biden were suddenly found in the back of a truck and under benches.
More recently, Julie Adams, a Republican member of Fulton County’s Board of Registration and Elections, sued the county for wrongfully withholding critical election records.
All that came to a head when the FBI raided Fulton County and seized all the records. They are currently going through everything with a microscope to determine if what happened was just plain incompetence or a criminal conspiracy.
The secretary of state’s office has also faced criticism for delayed responses to dozens of open records requests on election operations and for resisting full disclosure of voter registration data to the Department of Justice.
We see most of the refusal regarding the voter files coming from the Democrat controlled states. This is probably due to the voter roles being nothing more than hot garbage designed to help keep Democrats in power. Georgia is, for the most part, supposed to be a Republican state. It appears that we have two Republican parties down there. The Republicans who want to Make America Great Again, have honest and fair elections and to make sure only people who vote are citizens, alive and actually exist.
Then it looks like you have the “Other” Republican party. These are the Country Club, Chamber of Commerce Republicans who are basically “Democrat Lite.” They think that the Bush and Cheney families are the ones who should be running everything, and are best suited for managing the decline of the United States.
It looks like that the RINO’s are finally being pushed out and that Georgia might start having elections that people can trust. Of course, a large part of that will depend on who the next Secretary of State is for Georgia. Currently, a runoff election is scheduled for both the Republicans and the Democrats. I don’t know anything about the two Republicans, but the two Democrats? Both are from Fulton County. If either of those two ends up as the Secretary of State, you can kiss any chance of honest elections goodbye.
Thatisall
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