Carr: Kemp can’t be forced to hold hearing on State Election Board

ATLANTA – Georgians do not have the authority to demand that the governor convene an administrative hearing to take up accusations against members of state boards, Attorney General Chris Carr wrote in a legal opinion issued Friday.

Gov. Brian Kemp asked for the legal opinion late last month after Georgia Democrats called on the Republican governor to remove three GOP members of the State Election Board for approving changes to state election laws they said could disrupt the November elections.

The five-member board adopted a series of controversial rules changes last month that, among other things, would empower local election officials to delay or refuse to certify election results. 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..

Kemp asked Carr for his opinion on whether the phrase “upon charges being filed” in state law means a citizen can present information about a state board member that might constitute formal charges.

“It is my official opinion that … the phrase … does not mean that a citizen can simply submit information to the governor and trigger the hearing process contemplated,” Carr wrote.

Former Fulton County Election Board Chair Cathy Woolard, a Democrat, filed a formal ethics complaint last month against State Election Board members Janice Johnston, Janelle King, and Rick Jeffares – the three who voted for the rules changes – and called on Kemp to refer the complaint to the State Office of Administrative Hearings.

Specifically, Woolard accused the board of violating the state’s Open Meetings Act by meeting in July without the legally required public notice or a quorum. Board members responded by rescinding two rules changes they had made during that meeting and approving them on a second vote in early August.

Max Flugrath, communications director for Fair Fight, a voting rights organization founded by two-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, criticized Carr’s opinion Friday.

“The AG’s opinion leaves a gaping hole where accountability should lie,” Flugrath said. “If the grave, substantive, detailed, and ‘formal’ complaint filed by a former election official is not enough to trigger Gov. Kemp’s legal duty to hold a hearing on the pro-Trump Election Board members’ alleged illegal and unethical actions, the only reasonable conclusion is that the General Assembly wrote a worthless law.”

This story available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat, an initiative of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.