{"id":2208043,"date":"2024-03-28T07:37:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T11:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/georgia-house-guts-bill-that-would-have-given-election-board-power-to-investigate-secretary-of-state\/"},"modified":"2024-03-28T07:39:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T11:39:53","slug":"georgia-house-guts-bill-that-would-have-given-election-board-power-to-investigate-secretary-of-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/georgia-house-guts-bill-that-would-have-given-election-board-power-to-investigate-secretary-of-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia House removes power from bill allowing Election Board to investigate Secretary of State"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgeorgia-house-guts-bill-that-would-have-given-election-board-power-to-investigate-secretary-of-state%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2208043&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The Georgia House replaced\u2064 a bill granting investigative power to the State\u200d Election Board \u2063concerning \u2062the secretary\u200d of state. The Senate passed SB358 intending to empower the SEB to \u2063investigate election law administration and \u2063irregularities. \u2063This change came after a complaint regarding Fulton County&#8217;s 2020 election process. Despite an agreement on the \u200cmatter, concerns about accountability remain unaddressed.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>By passing an unrelated substitute bill in its place on Tuesday, Georgia\u2019s Republican-led House derailed a proposed bill that would have given the State Election Board (SEB) authority to investigate the secretary of state.<\/p>\n<p>The Georgia Senate <a href=\"https:\/\/senatepress.net\/senate-passes-legislation-to-empower-state-election-board-to-investigate-secretary-of-state.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">passed<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legis.ga.gov\/api\/legislation\/document\/20232024\/221230\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SB358<\/a> in January shortly after it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wuga.org\/local-news\/2024-01-24\/senate-committee-approves-state-election-board-authority-to-investigate-georgia-secretary-of-state\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">passed<\/a> out of the Senate Ethics Committee. The bill, as approved by the Senate, would remove the secretary of state from his role as an \u201cex officio nonvoting member\u201d of the SEB and permit the board to, amongst other things, \u201cinvestigate the Secretary of State\u201d and \u201crequire the Secretary of State to cooperate with certain investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-357183104\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-acbb94e96bc93260981c6311f3ee2da4 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-acbb94e96bc93260981c6311f3ee2da4\"><\/div>\n<p>The bill clarified that the SEB has authority to investigate \u201cthe administration of primary and election laws by the Secretary of State and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/group-our-vote-matters-is-suing-facebook-dominion-mark-zuckerberg-certain-state-officials-others-for-infringing-upon-right-to-vote-assemble-and-speak-freely-you-can-jo\/\" title=\"Group \u201cOur Vote Matters\u201d Is Suing Facebook, Dominion, Mark Zuckerberg, Certain State Officials, Others for Infringing Upon Right to Vote, Assemble and Speak Freely \u2013 You Can Join Too\">local election officials<\/a> and frauds and irregularities in primaries and elections.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>But the House Committee on Governmental Affairs ditched the Senate\u2019s bill in favor of a \u201csubstitute\u201d bill that has nothing to do with the bill\u2019s original purpose. That <a href=\"https:\/\/legiscan.com\/GA\/text\/SB358\/id\/2959754\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">substitute<\/a> appears to focus on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/march-for-our-lives-issue-biden-1-billion-list-of-gun-control-policy-demands\/\" title=\"March For Our Lives Issue Biden  Billion List Of Gun Control Policy Demands\">campaign finance laws<\/a> but includes no language authorizing the SEB to investigate the secretary of state as initially proposed. <\/p>\n<p>The initial legislation was proposed after Houston County resident, Joseph Rossi, filed a complaint alerting Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger\u2019s office to alleged discrepancies in Fulton County\u2019s 2020 election administration. <\/p>\n<p>The SEB and the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections entered a consent <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23875958\/signed_consent-order-seb-2021-181-and-2022-025-fulton-county-with-exhibit-a_redacted.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">agreement<\/a> last June acknowledging the county \u201cmisidentified and duplicated\u201d audit data when entering said data into the software used by the state. The investigators concluded the inconsistencies were the result of human error and the agreement stipulated the county would have to \u201cadequately train all of its elections staff involved in conducting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/groups-ask-doj-to-send-monitors-to-watch-arizona-election-audit\/\" title=\"Groups Ask DOJ to Send Monitors to Watch Arizona Election Audit\">risk-limiting audit<\/a> on the policies and procedures in advance of each election.\u201d <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e813bf554691564ffc99f3edd4622582 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e813bf554691564ffc99f3edd4622582\"><\/div>\n<p>Proponents of the senate bill, however, argue the agreement did not provide any legitimate remedies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt provides no accountability to the person or persons who miscounted on such an important vote,\u201d wrote Salleigh Grubbs, the chair of the Cobb County Republican Party, in a December letter to the SEB. \u201cAnd these improper counts have diluted the citizens of other counties \u2014 and Fulton County \u2014 in ways that are unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The SEB wrote to the legislature in January 2024 requesting the General Assembly \u201cclarify whether [the SEB] has jurisdiction to hear complaints from private individuals and entities regarding the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State\u2019s employees and staff and other Constitutional Officers and their employees and staff\u201d after the board split 2-2 on the decision.<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, Secretary of State Brian Raffensperger pushed back against the proposal, arguing the SEB lacks the authority to conduct oversight of the executive branch. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-75bc44238f7a03db71bac45a2dea0a3d fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-75bc44238f7a03db71bac45a2dea0a3d\"><\/div>\n<p>\u201cGiving a board of unelected bureaucrats unchecked power over the state\u2019s executive branch is a dangerous policy proposal,\u201d Raffensperger\u2019s general counsel Charlene McGowan argued, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/attempt-georgia-elections-board-investigate-secretary-state-sparks-legal-debate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fox News<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Proponents of the senate proposal argue that after an investigation by the SEB, \u201cany [enforcement] action against the Secretary of State would be decided by the Legislature alone\u201d and that the SEB\u2019s \u201cmore limited role in administration and enforcement does not mean that it may shirk its statutory duties of investigation and oversight,\u201d according to the letter from Grubbs.<\/p>\n<p>But by the looks of the House substitute bill, that requested reform isn\u2019t likely to happen by the time the legislature adjourns sine die on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Neither Speaker Jon Burns nor state Rep. John LaHood, who is the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, returned a request for comment regarding the amended bill and whether the legislature would address concerns about SEB\u2019s oversight authority. Burns <a href=\"https:\/\/legiscan.com\/GA\/rollcall\/SB358\/id\/1416067\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">did not participate<\/a> in the vote on the bill.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-cb9d48f91663287645d9776df6cb59c9 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-cb9d48f91663287645d9776df6cb59c9\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, Georgia&#8217;s Republican-led House derailed a bill giving the State Election Board power to investigate the secretary of state. The Senate passed SB358 in January. The House substituted an unrelated bill, halting the proposed investigation authority for the SEB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2208044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Informed-_Conversations_on_Democracy_in_the_Digital_Age_-_1A0A8281_52530955543-e1711388984180.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2208043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Informed-_Conversations_on_Democracy_in_the_Digital_Age_-_1A0A8281_52530955543-e1711388984180.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2208044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}