The reported plans from election officials in Georgia to help Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential race amounts to a coup, according to a legal expert.
On Wednesday, The Guardian reported on emails obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, that showed discussions among a team of ardent Trump supporters who call themselves the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition.
The emails from officials and 2020 election deniers reportedly showed their efforts to suggest that the upcoming coming presidential election in Georgia has been beset with fraud, despite no votes being cast in the key swing state.
Georgia was at the center of Trump’s false election fraud claims following the 2020 election. The Republican asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,870 votes needed to beat his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. As part of a sprawling racketeering investigation, Trump and several of his allies have been charged on allegations that they illegally tried to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. The former president has pleaded not guilty.
Writing in her Civil Discourse blog, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition must be “gifted fortune tellers,” as they were already questioning the integrity of the state’s election results, and described their efforts as “a recipe for a coup.”
Georgians waiting in line to vote early in the midterm elections at Ponce De Leon Library in Atlanta on November 4, 2022. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said reported plans from election officials in Georgia to help Donald Trump in the presidential race amounts to a coup.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
“The goal of their plan is to hamper certification of the election results if Trump loses,” Vance wrote. “This news is not a surprise.”
She continued: “There are some efforts underway to pretend the purely ministerial obligation election officials have to certify completed counts is something else, a process whose outcome these officials have the discretion to challenge.
“If this sounds familiar, it’s roughly akin to the idea of delaying certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2020, to throw the election into chaos amidst claims of (nonexistent) fraud. It’s a recipe for a coup.”
The Guardian reported that some of the emails it obtained were sent by David Hancock, a member of the Gwinnett County Board of Registrations and Elections, and Janice Johnston, a member of the Georgia State Election Board, which recently passed a rule that allows the board to delay the certification of election results unless a “reasonable inquiry” into any discrepancies is fully resolved.
The emails showed Hancock and Johnston coordinating about the proposed rule changes, the outlet reported.
Charles S. Bullock, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia, previously told Newsweek that the rule and its vague “reasonable inquiry” wording could allow board officials to refuse to certify an election if they “don’t like the results.”
In emails, Hancock also discussed an article published by the United Tea Party of Georgia under the headline “Georgia Democratic Party Threatens Georgia Election Officials,” which he appeared to take credit for writing, The Guardian reported.
The article discussed how a lawyer representing the Democratic Party of Georgia warned Republican election officials not to refuse to certify the upcoming presidential election results, as their nondiscretionary roles require.
“I don’t see how this stands—if the [board of elections] has no choice but to certify an election, then why require them to vote to certify the election?” Hancock wrote to prominent election denier Garland Favorito in January, The Guardian reported.
Newsweek has contacted Hancock for comment via email.
In a previous blog post, Vance said the intentions of Georgia’s GOP election officials were already clear.
“The duty of these officials to certify election results is ‘ministerial’—a task they are required to do. They lack discretion to question the vote counts,” Vance wrote in August.
She added, “You don’t have to be an expert in election law to see what’s happening: Trump is trying to create a legal path to do what he failed to accomplish in 2020, overturning the will of the voters if he loses.”
