Today’s Republican and Democrat primary elections will help determine their party nominees for the November general election. But there will be various runoff elections on June 16th if no candidates get over 50 percent of the vote. (The exception will be judges races, which will be final after tonight’s tally.
The political campaigns, headlined by U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, has garnered record-breaking numbers of early votes, with around 1 million Georgians casting a ballot before it closed last Friday. Democrats held a 15 percentage point turnout lead over Republicans, a reversal from the 2022 primaries when Republicans ended the early voting period with a 15-point lead over Democrats.
But there’s even more drama that occurred yesterday.
According to Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon, members of the State Election Board (SEB) have been blocked from observing the tally of vote totals on election night—and he’s demanding that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (also a candidate for governor) cancel his decision. McKoon labels the denial of access to the centralized Election Night Reporting Room (also known as The Bunker”) “outrageous” and “an unacceptable assault on transparency” and a “threat to the integrity of Georgia’s elections.”
The secretary of state’s secure “bunker” is an underground facility on the east side of Atlanta where votes from 159 counties are aggregated in real time and statewide results are prepared for release.
Salleigh Grubbs, a GOP SEB member, posted that she was “shocked to be told that the final tabulation of Georgia votes … is done behind closed doors, without transparency, independent observation and accountability.” She, McKoon and others cite two specific statutes: O.C.G.A. § 21-2-408, which guarantees poll watchers access to polling places and tabulation centers, and O.C.G.A. § 21-2-30, which charges the SEB with “ensuring uniform, lawful, and transparent” elections.
As this is written yesterday, state Sen. Greg Dolezal (a GOP candidate for lieutenant governor) announced that he joined an “emergency lawsuit” against Raffensperger over what the filing describes as a closed door election reporting “bunker.” At the same time GOP U.S. Clay Fuller is requesting that U.S. Congressional observers take part in the counting process
Raffensperger’s Communications Director Robert Sinners suggested reaching out to the attorney general’s office for a “formal opinion” with “written guidance.” Sinners claims, “No tabulation happens at the location being mentioned. Not one ballot, not one count. If these SEB members were serious about their concerns, they would spend their time where the ballots are — at the tabulation centers in large counties on Election Day.”
The twists and turns of this drama will no doubt continue today.
