The Republican majority on the State Election Board recently voted to hire an investigator who questioned the 2020 election and challenged outdated voter registrations.

Elizabeth Ann Delmas will become one of the board’s first two investigators empowered to look into allegations of wrongdoing independent of the secretary of state’s office.

Delmas has experience as an investigator for the U.S. Department of Defense and as a Sandy Springs police detective. But her prior involvement in elections drew opposition from two members of the State Election Board.

Elizabeth Ann Delmas speaks about allegations of fraud in the 2020 election during a meeting of the Senate Ethics Committee on March 16, 2021. The State Election Board voted to hire Delmas as an investigator on Jan. 13, 2025. (Screenshot, Georgia State Senate)

Credit: Georgia State Senate

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Credit: Georgia State Senate

Sara Tindall Ghazal, the only Democrat on the board, voted against Delmas’ hiring because of her ties to the Republican Party, including her work as a GOP appointee to bipartisan vote review panels responsible for adjudicating ballots with unclear choices.

“Any perception that investigations are slanted or colored by partisanship will undermine the credibility of both the findings and any actions that we take pursuant to them,” Ghazal wrote in a Dec. 5 email to the board. “The fact that she has been openly participating in party activities related to elections, and provides those as part of her qualifications, gives the perception of bias to the public and to counties that would be subject to investigation.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained the board’s emails discussing investigator hires through the Georgia Open Records Act.

Janice Johnston, a Republican appointee on the board who recommended Delmas for the job, defended her involvement in elections.

“I cannot imagine that anyone would think that poll watching, observing, or vote reviewing is highly partisan and a negative activity,” Johnston responded to Ghazal. “The real question to be asked is if a candidate (or board member) can perform their duties in a fair, legal and impartial manner.”

The board voted 3-1 to move forward with hiring Delmas on Jan. 13, but she hasn’t yet started the job. The General Assembly last year budgeted money for the two investigator positions, with a $70,000 salary plus benefits.

Delmas has expressed doubts about the 2020 election, when Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated Republican Donald Trump, and urged Republican state senators to change election laws. In comments to the Senate Ethics Committee in March 2021, Delmas said she was disturbed by the vote counting process at the Georgia World Congress Center after the 2020 election, saying she “had no idea the level of abuse.”

Multiple investigations and court cases debunked allegations of widespread fraud in 2020, and three statewide ballot counts showed Biden won by about 12,000 votes. Investigations of Fulton County verified human errors but didn’t find intentional wrongdoing.

“If you don’t look at anything there’s never going to be any evidence of fraud,” she told the committee. “You have to look at the allegations and actually delve in to find out if there’s something there.”

Kristin Nabers, Georgia director the voting rights organization All Voting Is Local, said she’s concerned Delmas has been given responsibility for investigations of voters and county election officials.

“After the 2020 election, Delmas went on record with baseless accusations of fraud, furthering conspiracy theories that put our election workers and election officials in danger and decreasing voters' trust,” Nabers said. “How can voters of Georgia trust her findings as impartial given her track record?”

Delmas also used a Georgia law that allows voters to challenge the eligibility of other voters, objecting to 192 voter registrations of people who she believed had moved from Fulton County. Election officials verified 154 of them had registered in different states, and their registrations were canceled in July 2022.

Delmas didn’t return a phone message seeking comment.

Delmas and another incoming investigator, former Locust Grove Police Chief Jesse Patton, will be responsible for looking into allegations of fraud and irregularities, along with two dozen investigators with the secretary of state’s office. Then the State Election Board will have the power to impose fines or reprimands.

Board Chair John Fervier, a Republican appointee who opposed Delmas’ hiring, said the new investigators will help clear a backlog of 199 open election cases.

An additional 361 investigations are complete, but the board hasn’t yet considered them because it instead spent multiple board meetings last year passing election rules that the courts later overturned.

“We have cases that go back to 2020 that still haven’t been heard by this board, and that’s just unfair to the people who have been accused,” Fervier said. “This board needs to do a better job of hearing and investigating these cases in a timely manner.”

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