We all know the story of Donald Trump’s endless fury for Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who refused to allow the former president to use his state to further MAGA efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
It seems like Kemp now has the opportunity to serve as a roadblock for another Trumpian election subversion scheme. It remains to be seen if he will.
As my colleague Khaya Himmelman has been reporting, there are three new, Trump-backed members on the Georgia Election Board who are using their positions to create new openings for chaos in the election certification process this fall. In recent weeks the board adopted rules that will, essentially, make it easier for local authorities to delay certification while they air out various disputes around the results, regardless of their worthiness.
One of the rules requires county-level election administrators to conduct what the board calls a “reasonable inquiry” into any discrepancies in the voting process before the state board will certify those results. The problem is, the election board also does not define what a “reasonable inquiry” might entail and characterizes election administration issues in broad terms.
As Khaya has reported, experts believe this is all intentional.
“It has potential to allow those election deniers who have made it onto seats on election boards in our state to hold up a perfectly viable election to hold that up and to keep it from moving forward as pace as it should,” Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director of the nonpartisan New Georgia Project recently told TPM.
TPM reported earlier today that Democrats have filed a lawsuit challenging the new rules, claiming they go against state law.
It’s not just voting rights advocates and Democrats who are concerned. Kemp is reportedly seeking out “advice” from his state attorney general on whether he has the authority to remove members from the election board upon the passage of the alarming new rules. Per the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
It’s unclear if Kemp is himself concerned about the actions of the members who form the new far-right majority on the board, or if he’s just following up on an inquiry from state lawmakers. But the Republican governor finds himself in a familiar spot: deciding whether to intervene as members of his own political party, who are aligned with Donald Trump, attempt to inject chaos into his state’s election administration system.
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Can you imagine being in a party that consistently puts you in a position of either supporting democracy and the will of your own citizens or instead supporting actual crimes to get a criminal elected.
What a wild world that must be.
Kemp is no sweet innocent, but I think he is trying to do the right thing here. No doubt driven in part by TFG’s continuing harassment.
What should I trust more, a rattle snake or Brian Kemp?
Or rather, what should I trust less?
Is Kemp a MAGA GOP or a LizCheney GOP? Or in all likelihood is he simply WIIFM GOP.
Based on the entirety of his actions during and since the previous election, there is good reason to believe that Governor Kemp values his own reputation enough to resist any illegitimate and felonious pressure brought to bear by his party’s nominee. It’s a hell of a thing, if you are someone like Donald Trump, to find yourself dependent on someone like Governor Kemp.