ATLANTA – Several Georgia Democrats filed a lawsuit Wednesday to force Gov. Brian Kemp to order a hearing on allegations that three Republican members of the State Election Board (SEB) violated the law.
State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes of Duluth, Randal Mangham – a former state representative now running for the Senate – and Cathy Woolard, a former chair of the Fulton County Board of Elections, claim the three “rogue” SEB members have pushed through a series of controversial changes in election rules that will let local election officials delay or refuse to certify election results.
The Democrats say that could sow chaos and uncertainty following the Nov. 5 elections and let former President Donald Trump capture Georgia’s 16 electoral votes, even if Vice President Kamala Harris has won more of the state’s popular vote.
“The governor works for the people of Georgia, not the national Republican Party or Donald Trump,” Islam Parkes said Wednesday. “He has an obligation to uphold the law.”
While Republican Attorney General Chris Carr has questioned the legality of some of the rules changes, the state’s top lawyer also declared in a written opinion this month that Kemp is not legally obligated to convene a hearing on the charges Democrats have made against GOP board members Janice Johnston, Janelle King, and Rick Jeffares.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday came two days after those same board members voted to instruct SEB Executive Director Mike Coan to investigate allegations that local election boards in eight mostly Democrat-led counties are thwarting citizen activists’ challenges of thousands of voter registrations, and one day after civil rights groups filed a suit challenging a new state law making it easier to mount such challenges.
The lawsuit targets a provision in Senate Bill 189, which the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed this year, that allows private citizens to challenge the registration of voters whose address is determined to be “nonresidential.” A second provision under fire requires homeless Georgians to use their county registrar’s office as their mailing address.
“Ill-conceived laws like Georgia’s SB189 are a bad solution in search of a non-existent problem,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a plaintiff in the case.
“This law threatens the integrity of our democratic process by creating unnecessary barriers that will likely disenfranchise eligible voters from historically excluded communities, including students, nursing home residents, and people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. The people of Georgia, especially its most vulnerable, deserve better.”
Woolard said calling out the State Election Board is not a partisan issue, pointing to a lawsuit a Georgia-based advocacy group headed by former Republican state Rep. Scot Turner has filed suit seeking to block the election rules changes.
“We can disagree on policy issues,” she said. “But we have to uphold the law.”