The true believers in election lies running Georgia's elections
Across the state, election deniers are running elections right now.
Despite his fervent belief in election conspiracy theories, a Republican member of the Pickens County Board of Elections isn’t even the most extreme election denier that has held power over the county’s voters. Larry Brown, whose beliefs in election conspiracy theories are well documented on his Facebook page, is actually a watered-down version of the woman he replaced, the county’s election supervisor told me today. That woman, Tracey Wright, was so far down the rabbit hole that she insisted election staff not use their work computers while traveling because nefarious parties that don’t exist could use them to hack into voting machines — a physical impossibility, the supervisor, Stacey Godfrey, noted.
Brown is just the latest election denier who sits on a county election board that I’ve discovered, and he’s one of three that I found this week. They’re in addition to the eight that I exposed last month for the Guardian. I did not intend to start the first six months of this year by going on a journey to expose people who believe insane election lies and who have landed themselves in positions of power over elections both in spite of and because of these beliefs. Brown himself was voted into the position by the county commission, one of two men held up by the local Republican party to sit on the elections board. He is also a former chairman of the county GOP, another reminder that believers in election lies are a feature, not a bug, of much of the Republican party.
It’s not clear whether Brown has actually done anything as a board member that would screw up elections in the county. Then again, I’m not driving five hours north to attend these often very boring meetings. (I have my hands full just keeping track of the insanity that’s going on in Spalding County, where a straight-up QAnon believer runs the election board.) In fact there really isn’t much oversight at all of these previously-overlooked boards. But considering men and women like Brown sit on them, that should change.
“I understand that there is zero mechanism in the Constitution to throw out Joe Biden and put Trump in” office, Brown bemoaned in July of last year, the same month he was appointed to the elections board. “However, we must get to the bottom of it and make sure it never happens again.”
Now, Brown and many others are in positions of power to do just that.
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In Worth County, Republican election board member Drew Chestnutt has posted about election lies. Days after the 2020 election, Chestnutt posted a letter from Georgia state legislators demanding Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger investigate Donald Trump’s bogus fraud claims. “Please call!” Chestnutt told his followers. The next month, Franklin County election board member Roman Strickland implored his friends and followers to do the same, sharing a post that urged Georgians to demand an emergency legislative session to investigate Dominion voting machines and “Pray that the U.S. Supreme Court will here (sic) the case about vote fraud, will see the truth, then rule appropriately.” (The post came from Paul Broun, a Georgia house candidate, abortion extremist and probably Christian nationalist whose Facebook page is a vector of right wing fear-mongering and general hate.) Obviously, Strickland is a big Trump supporter, calling a video montage of Trump idolatry set to Les Miserables’ Do You Hear the People Sing “Moving.” In February of last year, he expressed thanks that Trump avoided being charged for his various and obvious crimes because if he had been charged, “They could do the same thing to us.”
If all of this sounds like harmless posting, just take a look at what happened in Coffee County to get a glimpse of what election conspiracy theorists can do with their power. There, the former election supervisor let a group of election deniers inspect voting machines and other equipment in her office — an obvious crime. While the supervisor, who has since resigned, was rightfully the focus of the story, she isn’t the only one who facilitated this violation of Georgia and federal law. Also involved in the plot to find non-existent evidence of fraud that day was former election board member Eric Chaney, whose Facebook page is plastered with every variety of election lie imaginable.
The day after the 2020 election, Chaney posted one of his twisted musings.
“Just a thought. The election drags on for another day or so, the left declares victory, then we find out Trump actually has the votes to win,” Chaney wrote. “The metro cities will see chaos and unrest the likes of which we’ve never seen. Could this be the main stream (sic) media’s plan? Just a thought.”
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The problem with Chaney’s and others’ thoughts is that they’re turning into actions. Across the country, election deniers are seeking office. While that’s been well documented, less so are the Larry Browns of the world, who have power over local elections right now, and are part of Georgia Republicans’ support of election lies that played out with a secret fake elector plot and continues to this day. With 159 counties and at least three members on each county election board, plus a supervisor, the universe of possible election deniers working on local election rules and policies in Georgia is in the hundreds. In Spalding County, the election denier at the head of that election board shepherded the cancellation of Sunday voting against the vocal protestations of the Black community. (He also runs an IT company which contracts with the county, and several sources have told me he is trying to get a maintenance contract for the voting machines he believes are the source of election fraud.) With little transparency other than poorly-attended meetings and often scant local news coverage, these boards operate in the shadows. Since January I’ve been working to expose election deniers who populate these boards, but it is grueling and time-consuming work.
Board members aren’t always listed online, let alone what their party affiliation is. If they’ve made public comments in support of election lies they’re not often covered by the small town newspapers in their area. So I go hunting for them on Facebook, where many of them post without fear of repercussion over their conspiratorial beliefs. My work in the last three days led to this post and the exposure of Brown and the others. But I need a hand. For the moment, I’m funding this work myself. So I’m asking for donations to help fund this important work as we approach the midterms, when these boards will have the power to certify — or not — local election results.
If you’re interested in helping support this work, you can donate at my Patreon. As always, if you like what you see here, please subscribe and tell a friend. Every little bit helps.
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P.S. The photo at the top of this post is from a community center in my neighborhood. I’ve covered about 30 of Georgia’s 159 counties in my search for election deniers, so there’s a lot more work to do. I imagine by this time next week I’ll have a few more people to share with you.