Georgia election official Janelle King on the effort to change the state's election rules

Editor's note: Listen to our full episode on the Georgia election rules controversy here.   

The Georgia Supreme Court has blocked the state's Republican-led election board from enforcing new election rules introduced just weeks before Election Day. We speak to Republican Janelle King, a board member who pushed for the rule changes.

Janelle King, Republican member of Georgia’s State Election Board. Former deputy director of the Georgia Republican Party.

Sam Gringlas, Politics reporter at WABE, an NPR station in Atlanta.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Earlier this month, we spent an hour talking about an elections controversy in Georgia. The state elections board there had tried to push through several last-minute major rules changes. Those proposals frustrated local elections officials, both Democratic and Republican, and lawsuits were in the works.

Well, a few days after our broadcast, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox issued a decision that found the rules changes are, quote, illegal, unconstitutional, and void, end quote. The Georgia State Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal, so as of now, the rules changes sought by the Republican controlled elections board will not be enacted.

Sam Gringlas is a politics reporter for WABE in Atlanta. He was with us on that original show, and he's back with us now. Hello there, Sam.

SAM GRINGLAS: Hey there.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, Sam, so we wanted to have you back to provide us some context of what's been going on. That was your role in our previous show. And back then, we'd invited every single member of the elections board to join us.

Only one did, the board's lone Democrat. But after our broadcast, we did hear back from another board member, Republican Janelle King. I spoke with her late last week after the Fulton County Court ruling, and I asked King for her reaction to the fact that Judge Cox had found that the board's sweeping rules changes, everything from expanding mandatory poll watching areas, to requiring photo IDs for absentee ballots, to requiring a hand count of ballots, Cox found all of those unconstitutional, and here's what Janelle King said.

JANELLE KING: Unfortunately, Judge Cox is very misinformed. That being said, the other rules that we presented were rules that were brought to us by election officials. Many of those rules were not opposed by the election official organization that we have here. ... The fact that the judge has that perspective, it just tells me that he is also very much so misinformed as to how our election process works rather than just obtaining outcomes.

CHAKRABARTI: But whether or not there was support amongst elections officials for some of these rules isn't really the issue, right? The judge looked into Georgia state statute. For example, for the rule that requires poll managers, or would have required poll managers and poll officers to hand count ballots, not necessarily vote, but ballots, after the close of polls on Election Day, he cites chapter and verse of the Georgia state statutes on this and says this hand counting exercise is nowhere authorized by the General Assembly in the election code.

And then interestingly about expanding the mandatory poll watching areas. Same thing. He looked into what the legislature has specifically said, and he says, the state election boards cannot create rules that the General Assembly did not specifically legislate or specifically considered. What he's saying there is that the state election board has made up stuff that's not actually in your lane.

KING: (LAUGHS) And that's why I say he's severely misinformed, because the board hasn't made up anything. There's not one rule that we came up with that has been presented. That's number one. Number two, when we talk about the hand count rule, that is something that's already happening. Again, you have to understand the election process.

He ruled as though we were a legislator. We are not creating laws. We are creating rules to support those laws. So the rules that are in place to further define the laws. And that's what we were doing. The fact of the matter is can counting on Election Day, particularly as it relates to the ballots that come in through that scanner.

Versus just throwing them into a bag and shipping them off, ensuring that those ballots are actually out of those scanners, is a process and actually a best practice that we found in other counties, such as Cobb County, which is one of our largest counties. There was a precinct that currently hand counts today.

There are other precincts that will be hand counting in this election because they always have. So part of our Georgia code, it states that as a state election board, part of our responsibility is to create uniformity. The fact that we have counties running the elections in different ways, having different processes and procedures in place, does not create uniformity.

So it's all about how you interpret and how you choose to view it. Again, we are not a legislative body. So to utilize laws or statutes that refer to legislators when it comes to us, was inaccurate from the beginning, I, without making assumptions, I have to speculate a little bit as to whether or not the judge fully understands the role of our state election board.

And now that is the area where I do believe that we could be better defined by the legislators. And hopefully that will happen in this upcoming session and allow us to continue to do the work of the people.

CHAKRABARTI: So that's Janelle King, Republican member of the Georgia State Elections Board. Sam Gringlas is with us, politics reporter WABE.

Sam, I wonder if you could give us more context on that Fulton County case or even all the other cases in the works in Georgia.

GRINGLAS: Yeah, let's look at what Judge Cox actually wrote in his ruling, and he's writing not that the state election board doesn't have the ability to issue guidance or rules to clarify Georgia law.

What he's saying is that these rules in question conflict with Georgia law, and in doing that, they are impeding on the role of the state legislature, which has the sole discretion to make law. For example, he writes that the Georgia Constitution provides that only the General Assembly can provide a law for a procedure whereby returns of all elections are made to the Secretary of State.

This is something that is for the legislature, not the SEB. Now I want to address this question about hand counts already happening in some counties. I actually got a question on this from a veteran poll watcher in one county who said he was confused, because he thought they'd already been doing some version of a hand count.

And it is true that some counties do a hand count, but it's optional. And the secretary of state has actually been advising against it. So it would not be considered best practice in any way. And any references to this hand count that already exist in Georgia code, I'm told there's actually a relic from before the time when Georgia even had electronic ballot marking devices.

CHAKRABARTI: Ah, okay. Interesting. So I also asked Janelle King about the other major aspect of the controversy, that the board was trying to advance these rules changes very quickly, even though the board is not allowed to issue rules changes in a defined period before an election.

And here's King's response.

KING: So these rules were not pushed through quickly at all. We took our time to ensure that the rules were written correctly and that we weren't overstepping our boundaries. And in doing so, we ran into several obstacles. What do I mean by that? For one, once we pass these rules, there is a 20 day period before they are adopted.

That 20-day period is supposed to start 48 hours after the rule was approved. In our case, our chairman, who was clearly opposed to these rules and withheld these documents, this posting for two weeks instead of 48 hours. So that then pushed our adoption date into early voting. So we were up against a lot of backlash.

We're up against a lot of interference. We have a secretary of state that does not work with us. Instead, he works against us, because he is not happy that he is no longer on the board of chairing the board. And so when you have all of that going on behind the scenes, the public is not privy to that.

Another issue was once the rules were adopted, we were notified that there was a secret message that went out to all election officials from our Secretary of State's office informing them that he will not be training them until he gets a ruling from the court. At this time, we didn't have a lawsuit on the table.

So I'm a little confused as to why, once we approved the rules, he did not immediately go into training these election officials on how to implement these rules, which would have assisted us in this manner. Instead, he said on his hands, because we wouldn't sit on ours. I think it's important to note that we, by no means, were trying to push our rules into effect in a way where it would negatively affect those who would be implementing those rules.

We had them in mind the entire time. This narrative that we are somehow pushing these rules ahead and that they're going to somehow benefit one candidate over the other. It's just not true.

CHAKRABARTI: So Sam, let's focus for a second on this, what King called a secret message from the secretary of state's office about not training on rules changes.

You've got reporting on that.

GRINGLAS:  So this letter is not quite secretive. It was sent to election officials, yes. But it was also shared with some members of the media and reported on, including me. And what it said is that basically while these rules are tied up in litigation, and because training was already in progress at that time, that they weren't going to train people on something new because it could be flipped back.

And that could be very confusing. If you train someone on something and then the court say, JK, we're not doing this, forget all of that. And that just creates a really difficult environment for poll workers who are already navigating a lot of complex procedures. And so they were basically encouraging election departments to wait for the court to weigh in.

Probably assuming at least that these rules would not be implemented for this election. Now, during meetings, King did say that she was talking to election officials. And on the hand count rule, for example, they did rework that rule a bit to make it a little less objectionable. But you did hear election official after election official testify during these public election board meetings saying they did not want these rules, especially for this election.

CHAKRABARTI: And I will say that it caught our attention when King said that there was no court case on the table at the time, and by our analysis here at On Point, one of the rules changes went through on September the 24th, and the first lawsuit that we can find was filed on September 26th, and then that email that we've been talking about from the Secretary of State's office was dated October 1st.

So from our analysis, we do see at least one lawsuit on the table. All right. So there's one more aspect, of course, of this election that I wanted to talk with Janelle King about. And that was the allegation that Republican members of the state elections board are making rules changes in order to favor Donald Trump.

Now earlier this year, Trump had mentioned the three Republicans by name during an Atlanta rally saying, quote, they're on fire, they're doing a great job. They're all pit bulls fighting for transparency, honesty, and victory. So I asked Janelle King if she sees that as the board's role.

KING: No, I see, I understand his excitement.

I don't know what victory he's referring to, other than victory for the voters, so that they can feel confident in the elections. As I said it several times, I did not attend the rally. I did not know that he was going to mention us or that he was even watching what we were doing. There was no conversation or communication with his team or the campaign or anybody close to Trump.

I do not see us as a partisan board. We have a mixed bag of political views on the board. And it just so happens that the three of us saw where there was a need for this. Myself, Dr. Jan, and Rick. We are all still very much so involved with those who are impacted by bad policy and bad election processes.

I have relationships with the election officials. We're not afraid to rock the boat if it means strengthening our election process, where we have others that may be a little bit more risk averse. So that's what we were running into. And while I'm grateful for the encouragement, because it sure beats the attacks, I just think it's important that your listeners know that we are not involved with the campaign in any way.

CHAKRABARTI: Just as an aside, Ms. King, I've got to say, let's be real, everybody's watching Georgia. It's no surprise that Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, would be paying close attention to elections rules in Georgia. He's been paying close attention to Georgia for many years now. But let me ask you, you just said again that you have concerns about things that you've heard regarding bad elections processes.

How far back do you think these bad elections processes go? 2016, 2012, 2000, 2008? How far back?

KING: I can't say for certain, because I wasn't paying attention that far back. But I will say that where it really raised its head was in 2018 where Stacey Abrams sued the state due to her believing that there was some discrepancies in her election.

I think where the mistake was made is that it seems as though when a Democrat raises the concern, when they are affected by it, Republicans are quiet, and then vice versa. And I know this is the case. Because we have a board member who is a Democrat who also, before joining the board, she came before this very board on behalf of the grassroots of the Democrat party, basically saying they want to see the dominion machine removed.

So she was advocating for election integrity then. And then today on the board, she acts as if we don't have election issues. I think the problem we have is that for some reason the grassroots makes it a little bit more partisan than it needs to be.

CHAKRABARTI: So you previously said also that regarding 2020 specifically that you have questions about the 2020 election.

What are those questions?

KING: We found that about 300,000 missing ballot images throughout the state. There's about 17,000 missing ballot images just from Fulton County. Fulton County double counted that 3,000 ballots. We are told that these ballot images are not missing, but for some reason they cannot be produced.

Those raise concerns for me.

CHAKRABARTI: So that's Janelle King, Republican member of the Georgia State Elections Board. And Sam, before I get to you for a last thought here, I want to clarify something that she said there at the end, as far as we can find, about those ballot images, because in 2022, a complaint was filed disputing the 2020 recount in Fulton County.

And in May of this year, that state elections board, including King, heard the official findings of state investigators that were examining the complaint, and they said they have no idea where the claim of missing Election Day ballot images come from. Because the complaint focused only on the recount. And the investigators also said that ballot images are not used to count or tally votes, and they couldn't find evidence that duplicates were used in the final recount.

Also in 2020, Georgia did not require local elections officials to save ballot images, and the state changed that rule in 2022. So a real different set of views on ballot images. Sam, we've got about a minute left to go. Just broadly, what's the state of elections right now in Georgia, given all these still questions and claims?

GRINGLAS: As I've been saying, as we've covered this story, there are so many checks and balances, like the courts and state officials who have and can step in to make sure things don't go sideways, and that has happened so far. Several judges have stepped in to counter the most controversial rules, and while they are still being opposed, but since these ballots have already been repealed, they will not be in effect for this upcoming election.

But that doesn't mean that there hasn't been consequences. For example, one of the judges who ruled against some of these efforts has already received death threats online. But so far early voting is underway in Georgia, more than 2.8 million people have cast ballots early in person or by mail.

Nearly 40% of Georgia's active voters have weighed in on this election in this critical state and they're doing it fairly easily with more than a week to go.