County at center of 2020 election controversy avoids takeover by Georgia's GOP legislature

Georgia's election board has unanimously voted against taking over voting in Fulton County.

The board concluded the heavily Democratic county had made significant corrections to its election operations since the contentious 2020 election following a review, called for by Republican state legislators under a voting law passed last year, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The performance review helped incentivize Fulton County to make improvements to their elections, which doesn’t surprise me. When under scrutiny, people do in fact change,” said state election board chairman Bill Duffey. “There has to be an assurance of readiness for success in the 2024 election.”

The review followed reported "inconsistencies" during a hand recount of the votes cast in the contentious 2020 election.

Fulton County officials told the board the performance review had not turned up any violations of state law as they made improvements to training, processes and procedures, and the county's incoming election board chair said she would ask her board to work with other counties to improve operations around the state.

“This is all new territory, new ground," said incoming chair Patrise Perkins-Hooker. "Fulton County has been paving the way, and we need to work together collectively. Despite that we’ve had no violations, it’s very hard to navigate through this law.”

A group of GOP legislators who represent parts of Fulton County initiated the review that could have resulted in a state-appointed administrator replacing the county election board, and while the performance review found "disorganization and a lack of a sense of urgency" in prior years, the state board was satisfied with the improvements.

“Everybody involved in this process proved they were dedicated to making the experience for the voter and the results being trustworthy as their primary goal,” said longtime GOP poll watcher Matt Mashburn. “Everybody acted toward that goal, and I think the talking heads were wrong.”