Fulton election board to meet for 1st time since call for review

The Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections is slated to meet Thursday, which is the first time since Georgia Republicans in both state chambers called for a review of the county’s elections management.

In late July, two dozen state Senators called for a review and five state House members backed them. The never-before-used process is laid out in Senate Bill 202, a bill passed by Georgia’s Republican-controlled General Assembly soon after the 2020 election cycle ended.

A takeover of county elections is one of the many things included in the bill’s 98 pages. The takeover could mean the ouster of the elections board — only to be replaced by a temporary superintendent with authority over vote counting, polling places and staffing.

Republicans have said they are trying to protect Fulton’s voters from the county’s decades of elections mismanagement. But Democrats, including county leaders, insist the effort is a hostile takeover to alter elections results.

Along with regular updates will be discussion of the county auditor’s review of the elections department, according to the meeting agenda posted online Wednesday.

The Thursday meeting also comes after an internal audit found 10 areas of fiscal management that the elections department needs to improve upon. The audit did not deal with management of polling locations or vote-counting.

The meeting is set to include votes on agreements to run local elections for 13 cities, including Atlanta with its high-profile mayoral race, and the T-SPLOST vote.