Georgia Republican Attorney General Chris Carr issued an official opinion earlier this week that said the State Election Board can’t ask his office to investigate Fulton County’s handling of the 2020 presidential election. The opinion was not well received by some members of his own party – especially the Georgia Republican Assembly which sent out an email Tuesday stating that the opinion issued by Carr’s office “is a glaring contradiction to his public statements made just weeks ago.”
The email states, “On August 1, 2024, the Attorney General Chris Carr emphatically declared on social media that he would ‘investigate specific claims of voter fraud’ and that his office was ready to ‘prosecute any voter fraud found in the State of Georgia.’ Yet now, he claims that his office is not required to investigate the very fraud referred to him by the State Election Board (SEB), dismissing their request as beyond his statutory obligations”
According to a report in the Democracy Docket, Carr’s opinion stems from a complaint filed by voters Joe Rossi and Kevin Moncla, alleging mass election fraud in Fulton County in 2020. They claimed there were multiple duplicate ballots, missing ballot images and missing documents. Janice Johnston, one of the Republican board members, reintroduced a discussion of the complaint at a July 9 meeting of the State Board of Elections.
Board chair John Fervier argued that “the case has been heard and adjudicated in a previous hearing,” but Johnston said this issue needs to be discussed more to ensure that Rossi and Moncla’s complaint is effectively heard.”
At its Aug. 6 meeting, the board voted to refer this case to the attorney general’s office with “instruction to immediately investigate with outside investigators” and requested a report within 30 days. They said that if the attorney general rejects their request, they will hire outside counsel to investigate this case,” the report indicated.
In his opinion, Carr said the “authority to investigate potential violations of the election laws rests with the [State Election Board] and not with the Attorney General,” and that he is not required to conduct an investigation because a state agency asked his office to.
Representatives from the Georgia Republican Assembly said this “about-face is not only hypocritical but also a clear evasion of the responsibilities vested in the Attorney General under Georgia law. O.C.G.A. § 45-15-4 explicitly authorizes the Attorney General to employ private counsel for any branch of state government, including for investigations into matters as serious as election fraud. Additionally, O.C.G.A. § 21-2-31(5) mandates the SEB to investigate election irregularities and report violations to the Attorney General for further investigation and prosecution. The Attorney General’s refusal to act on this referral, especially after publicly vowing to tackle voter fraud, is a betrayal of the trust placed in his office by the people of Georgia.”
The email from GRA went on to say, “The Attorney General’s current stance is a deliberate misreading of his role. By refusing to investigate, he is abdicating his duty to uphold the integrity of our elections. The people of Georgia deserve an Attorney General who backs up his words with action, not one who hides behind legal technicalities when it’s time to deliver on promises made to protect our republic.”
But, according to several reports, Carr explained that the state election code does not empower him to “act on his own as an investigator beyond the limited context of a referral of a case to the Attorney General for potential criminal prosecution.”
He said the board has a couple of options: they can conduct their own investigation or authorize the secretary of state to investigate an issue, one report said.
Some GOP activists contacting James Magazine Online say this will adversely affect his rumored bid for governor in the 2026 GOP primary.
