More partisan sparring at Georgia election board following controversial hand-counting rule and TV interviews

By Jason Morris, CNN

(CNN) — The Georgia State Election Board meeting became contentious on Monday as two members of the Republican-controlled board defended their reasons for approving a controversial new election rule requiring county election officials to hand-count the number of ballots cast on Election Day.

Friday’s vote was 3-2, with three Donald Trump allies supporting the move, and a Democratic and independent GOP-appointed member of the board strongly opposing it, calling it an added step that could delay the results of the presidential election in the battleground state.

Trump last month praised the three GOP members for their efforts.

Monday, one of those Republicans, Dr. Janice Johnson, decried what she said were media inaccuracies and partisan attacks.

“The so-called news is delivered as a scary fairy tale or perhaps an end-of-the-world apocalypse tale.” Johnson said. “Everyone should take a deep breath and calm down all because of attention to the mundane unexciting chain of custody processes.”

Monday’s meeting was a continuation of Friday’s agenda and was expected to be routine until board members started to bicker.

Johnson’s speech was followed by a contentious back-and-forth between Republican Janelle King, a media personality who is the board’s newest member, and Sara Tindall Ghazal, the board’s lone sitting Democrat. King took issue with Ghazal’s appearance on MSNBC, where she questioned her colleagues’ agendas.

“You are creating a conspiracy based off an assumption … you are alluding to the fact that we are doing something that is somehow dishonest, just because you disagree,” King said.

“I am expressing concern about the fact that this board is acting in a way that the attorney general has stated is unlawful,” Ghazal replied.

“Well, I’m concerned about the fact that you are going on national TV and making an assumption that we are working on some agenda that’s been constructed around from the media because I haven’t spoken to the Trump campaign,” King said. “I have nothing to do with the Trump campaign.”

Johnson followed up by using sharp rhetoric to push back on what she claims has been an overwhelmingly unfair reaction to her work.

“As I reflected upon this weekend, I thought, yes, character assassination. Yes, media murder. Yes. And ‘lawfare lynching. And that’s, that’s where this is all headed and I, I really don’t appreciate it,” Johnson said.

Throughout the bickering at the beginning of Monday’s all-day meeting, John Fervier, the board’s volunteer, nonpartisan chairman who was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, unsuccessfully tried to call the board to order, pounding his mallet frequently while calling the discussion “ inappropriate.”

“It bothers me a lot when there is public sniping on the board,” Fervier told CNN Monday, adding that he preferred these matters are addressed in private.

The office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, told the election board Thursday in a letter obtained by CNN that several of its proposed rules “very likely” go beyond the board’s legal authority and “conflict” with existing state election laws. The letter warned the board that their changes could “easily be challenged and determined to be invalid.”

A lawyer for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, also sent a blistering two-page letter to the State Election Board last week warning that the new rules are impossible since “many poll workers have already completed their required training.”

The reshaping of the election board in one of the most critical battleground states of 2024 highlights how some Republicans who cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election results have now taken on prominent roles driving election rules and, in some areas, overseeing elections.

The five-person election board was once led by Georgia’s secretary of state. But after 2020, Trump fought to overturn his loss in the Peach State, pressuring Raffensperger to “find” the thousands of votes Trump needed to win. Raffensperger refused, and in the aftermath, the GOP-led state legislature removed the secretary as a member of the board.

CNN’s Mounira Elsamra contributed to this report.

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