Georgia secretary of state calls for Fulton County elections officials to be fired

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Thursday called for two Fulton County officials to be removed from their posts.

Raffensperger said that Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron and Registration Chief Ralph Jones had to be fired and removed immediately.

“Fulton County’s continued failures have gone on long enough with no accountability. Rick Barron and Ralph Jones, Fulton’s registration chief, must be fired and removed from Fulton’s elections leadership immediately. Fulton’s voters and the people of Georgia deserve better,”  Raffensperger tweeted. 

Fulton County’s continued failures have gone on long enough with no accountability. Rick Barron and Ralph Jones, Fulton’s registration chief, must be fired and removed from Fulton’s elections leadership immediately. Fulton’s voters and the people of Georgia deserve better.

— GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (@GaSecofState) July 15, 2021

The tweet from Raffensperger comes after reports that elections officials in Fulton County had initially scanned about 200 ballots twice before a recount of the presidential election last fall, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

President Biden won the state of Georgia in the 2020 election over former President Trump, the first time in over 20 years that a Democrat has taken the reliably red state. Biden won a good chunk of support in Fulton County, which includes the Atlanta area.

Following the election, Georgia was the subject of election controversy, and the Trump campaign as well as Republicans ordered audits of election results. Three audits were held, but there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. 

The Journal-Constitution noted that the 200 ballots scanned twice appeared to have no significant impact on the final certified count. 

Raffensperger is running for reelection next year and is already facing at least one challenger, Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who has been endorsed by Trump. The Georgia Republican Party passed a resolution in June to censure Raffensperger because he did not act on false claims made by Trump that widespread voter fraud had occurred in the state. 

Georgia Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen, who is also running for secretary of state next year, replied to Raffensperger’s tweet, saying, “By his own admission, we conducted the most secure election in Georgia’s history — but here he is again trying to appease a radicalized & dangerous base that has rejected him. We deserve better.”