Fulton County is Gradually Losing its Grip on Election Corruption

Topic: Elections

In a few short years, Georgia has gone from being a reliably Republican political afterthought to one of the cornerstones of the American political scene.  The likely 2024 Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has 235 electoral votes on the board if he holds the exact same hand that was certified in 2020, with all its fraud, and 236 if Nebraska makes its electoral votes winner-take-all.  That means Trump would meet or surpass 270 electoral votes by taking Georgia and Pennsylvania, or Georgia with Arizona and Wisconsin.

In short, Georgia is critical for restoring functionality, confidence, and transparency in our national system of elections.  Georgia’s 2020 Presidential Election was decided by the slimmest of margins, behind only Arizona’s margin of 10,457 votes between Trump and Biden.  It’s largest county, Fulton, integrated a “pipe burst” into its corruption arsenal, and the fourth largest, DeKalb, found and counted votes for days after even The New York Times had Georgia going to Trump with certainty on Election Night; had that happened in reverse in favor of Trump, the political commentariat would have been apoplectic.

Fulton County, home to most of metro Atlanta, is a typical Democrat-run mega-county, mired in crime and corruption and oppressive to the professional class that inhabits its far-flung suburban towns and cities.  Recently, the City of Milton’s City Council voted unanimously to run its own municipal elections in 2023, citing substantial cost savings:

The Cities of Johns Creek and Roswell capitalized on Milton’s move, and are also making the break from Fulton County.  Georgia sources report Alpharetta and Mountain Park are also branching away from the county and its burdensome cost to administer its (Fulton’s) brand of third-world elections in their respective politically moderate cities.

This separation is the first step toward providing the transparency that is needed to bring about confidence in elections once again.  You may be reading this thinking, “well, these changes are only for municipal elections,” but now that these cities are taking ownership of their own election administration, the window of opportunity for repairing public trust has opened widely.  This opportunity of seizing back of control in Fulton County extends to the long-sought banishment of voting machines, allowable by an obscure law: GA Code § 21-2-334 (2021)

If a method of nomination or election for any candidate or office, or of voting on any question is prescribed by law, in which the use of voting machines is not possible or practicable, or in case, at any primary or election, the number of candidates seeking nomination or nominated for any office renders the use of voting machines for such office at such primary or election impracticable, or if, for any other reason, at any primary or election the use of voting machines wholly or in part is not practicable, the superintendent may arrange to have the voting for such candidates or offices or for such questions conducted by paper ballots. In such cases, paper ballots shall be printed for such candidates, offices, or questions, and the primary or election shall be conducted by the poll officers, and the ballots shall be counted and return thereof made in the manner required by law for such nominations, offices, or questions, insofar as paper ballots are used.

If the focus municipalities continue this path, it is indeed earth-shaking news.  Banning electronic elections equipment is the second of the Ten Points to True Election Integrity; Georgia cities or subsequent counties abandoning voting machines would also be wise to ban electronic poll books and other complex tabulation systems that inhibit transparency in voting and tabulation, and by virtue of moving away from black-box voting, automatically adopt the third of the ten points, voting on paper ballots, with enforced voter ID.

In accordance with the law shown above, officials would also be tasked to ensure precinct-level voting operations run without a hitch, which would mandate smaller precincts (the sixth point of the ten), the counting of ballots there, and the creation of a timely counting and reporting mechanism (point nine of ten).  At this point, cities or counties adopting such measures fully or partially adhere to four of the ten points for free and fair elections and may even be able to enforce laws against ballot harvesting more effectively on their own, bringing the total to five that can be acted upon at that level.

This plan to seize control of local elections in Fulton County may catch on like wildfire throughout the country, and is instrumental in restoring order to Georgia’s elections, which is a critical national task.  These plans will certainly be met with brute legal force by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his cronies but will certainly advance the cause of local action and control and highlight the importance of being engaged at every level of government.  Ensuring patriots oversee every echelon of government allows for debates like this to occur in the first place and bring us closer to our goals of restoring transparency in elections.