The Fulton County Board of Commissioners met Wednesday but did not appoint two Republican nominees to the county election board, flouting a judge’s directive that they do so.
The Democratic majority on the board is in an ongoing legal dispute with the Fulton Republican Party over the nominations.
Wednesday’s decision, made along party lines, to table the nominations means the commission will not consider appointing Julie Adams and Jason Frazier while they argue their case in the Georgia Court of Appeals. Democratic commissioners object to the nominees, saying they are election critics and unqualified to serve on the board.
Adams, an incumbent election board member, voted against certifying last year’s primary election, and Jason Frazier challenged thousands of voter registrations in the heavily Democratic county.
“We resolve disagreements like this in a court of law, not in a court of public opinion,” said Commission Chairman Robb Pitts.
Pitts said the board would reconsider voting on the GOP appointments after the appellate court rules on their case. He also raised concerns about the cost to county taxpayers from mounting legal fees.
The Democratic majority voted down the nominations of Adams and Frazier in May and again in August, even after a judge ordered them to do so. Critics of Adams and Frazier said their past actions make them unfit to serve on the board.
Last week, Senior Superior Court Judge David Emerson found the commission in contempt and ordered that they be assessed a $10,000 fine for every day the board delayed seating the two nominees on the election board. Emerson stayed his decision, pausing the fines after the commissioners filed their appeal.
If the daily fines are upheld by the appellate court, they would not be retroactively imposed from their initial start date, Pitts said.
But Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon said he will be looking for any additional legal way to hold the “defiant and lawless Democrats on the Fulton County Commission accountable.”
“I never want to hear any of these Democrats breathe a word about respect for the rule of law again,” he said.
And before Wednesday’s vote, Republican commissioner Bridget Thorne accused the Democratic commissioners of being hypocrites, saying they aren’t going to listen to the judge’s order simply because they don’t like it.
“Isn’t that what they accuse the Republicans of doing?” Thorne said. “Isn’t that what they accuse Trump of doing?”
When asked about Thorne’s comparison, Democratic Commissioner Dana Barrett called it “a Republican talking point” and a “false equivalence.”
The county election board has five members. The chair is selected by the commission and two Republicans and two Democrats are nominated by their respective parties and seated by a vote of the commissioners.
Democratic commissioners have said that although they must appoint nominees from each party, they aren’t required to accept any nominee.
Before the vote, commissioners also faced pressure from Democratic state and federal lawmakers to reject Adams and Frazier.
About two dozen Democratic state lawmakers from Fulton County sent a letter Tuesday urging commissioners to continue to reject the GOP appointments, claiming the nominees are part of a “partisan scheme to undermine public confidence in elections.”
Both Republican nominees have a history of their own legal disputes.
Adams joined several Republicans on county election boards across the state and refused to certify results since Trump’s loss in 2020, but they approved results of Trump’s victory last year following a court decision that certification is mandatory.
Last year, Frazier sued the Fulton County Election Board, alleging it violated state and federal laws by failing to remove ineligible voters from its rolls. He also said the county didn’t act on voter challenges in a timely manner. He later withdrew the lawsuit.
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