Georgia's Lt. Gov. Burt Jones has been ramping up his attacks on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican who has gained national notoriety for rebuffing former President Donald Trump's demand that he "find" extra votes to reverse President Joe Biden's victory in the state. He has now taken out an attack ad against his colleague, featuring Raffensperger's face on a milk carton "missing" bulletin and demanding voters call his office.
There's just one problem with that ad, noted Georgia Public Radio political reporter Stephen Fowler in a post on X.
"[Jones] is continuing to attack Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over his job performance with an ad demanding people call the *wrong phone number* to complain about him," wrote Fowler.
In fact, the number posted in the ad is the number for the Corporations Division of the Secretary of State's Office, not the elections division.
"The ad accuses the state’s top election official, who does not actually run elections, from being 'absent' from the office and legislative meetings, quoting heavily from a recent hearing where Raffensperger didn’t attend because of a prior conflict," wrote Fowler, who noted that this "stems from the SOS office decision of how and when to upgrade the software for Georgia’s electronic voting system, coming from the chamber that has frequently attacked elections, and as Jones and Raff could be 2026 gov primary opponents."
Jones, a Trump loyalist who served as one of the fake Republican Georgia electors in 2020, was elected in 2022 after former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a more Trump-skeptical Republican, decided not to run for re-election.
He was previously under investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who went on to indict Trump and several of his associates for racketeering, but a state judge disqualified her from investigating Jones after finding she had a conflict of interest because she had attended a fundraiser for Jones' political opponent. The responsibility of investigating Jones was then transferred to the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia.
