Georgia Speaker David Ralston raises possibility of removing elections functions from Secretary of State’s Office

A day after protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. over President Donald Trump’s election loss, Georgia Speaker of the House David Ralston said he expects election reform will be one of the top issues taken up by the state General Assembly this spring.

Ralston met with reporters at the Capitol on Thursday for a pre-session media availability ahead of the opening of the 2021 legislative session, which begins on Monday. The speaker talked about issues he believes will come up this year, including election reform.

A major bit of news to come out of the meeting with reporters was Ralston’s announcement that he plans to form a special committee to look into election reform. But, one of the biggest items is that he raised the possibility of removing elections functions from the Secretary of State’s Office and creating a new chief elections officer position to oversee all elections-related matters in the state.

“I proposed the Tennessee model for selecting a (legislature-appointed) secretary of state (and) we’re going to talk about that, have a discussion about it,” Ralston said. “I’m not wedded to that only. I’m also now looking at possibly taking the elections function out of that office and doing a chief elections officer, which would not require a constitutional amendment, so that there is some more accountability there.

“I know the secretary of state, and I heard people say, ‘Well, he’s elected.’ Well, he is, but you know I think members of the legislature have a unique perspective on the views of the people of Georgia.”

Elections are expected to be a major issue that the Republican-controlled General Assembly tackles after outgoing Trump lost the state and then made claims of widespread election fraud.

Trump is the first Republican to lose Georgia to a Democrat in a presidential race since former President George H.W. Bush lost the state to Bill Clinton in the 1992 election. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he did not really lose the state, however, and a recording surfaced last weekend of a phone call during which he could be heard telling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse his loss in the state.

Raffensperger and other officials from his office have repeatedly refuted Trump’s claims of widespread fraud in the state.

The speaker said whether he believed fraud occurred didn’t matter in the debate.

“It’s the perception that people have (of the election),” he said. “Let’s look at the facts here. The fact are we’ve had three recounts, we’ve had an audit. We’ve had more than six — I’ve lost count, I know of at least six — lawsuits that have been filed, all of which have been dismissed, which kind of begs the question, ‘Well, if there were in fact significant wrongdoing, would it not have been disclosed?’

“But, people are concerned and I think we have to speak to those concerns, but I think we have to tell them the truth and I think they have not been given the truth all the time on this.”

Ralston said elections in Georgia should be open, but he did not rule out the chance that the House will look at no excuse absentee by mail voting, which surged in popularity in Georgia in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Republicans in the Georgia Senate have talked about doing away with no excuse absentee-by-mail voting all together, but Ralston seemed to shy away from supporting that, saying he’d need to see a good reason for doing that.

Georgia’s no excuse absentee-by-mail system was set up by the Georgia General Assembly in 2005. The speaker pointed out Republicans were in power in the legislature at that time.

“We might look at tightening up some of the, and maybe categorizing some of the reasons (for casting an absentee ballot), but I want elections to be open,” Ralston said. “But I want them to be fair and I want them to be secure.”

But in light of Wednesday’s events at the U.S. Capitol, Ralston expressed confidence in security on staff at the state’s Capitol in Atlanta, addressing whether he felt the “Gold Dome” would be safe during the session.

It will be, he said as he talked about fencing that had already been installed around the Capitol before Wednesday as well as the state troopers who work at the building.

“We’ve got great security here,” Ralston said. “I mean the members of the Georgia State Patrol are among the best in the country. They’re professional, they’re top rate. We will have them here staffed up as well as the Capitol Police.

“And, I’m sure, God forbid that should we need it, we’ve also got National Guard units that we can utilize.”

Some items Ralston said he would like looked at include addressing mental health and getting dyslexia labeled a learning disability for students in Georgia’s schools.

He said would also like to see the state’s amended appropriations bill dealt with quickly just in case the legislative session in interrupted part way through, as it was in 2019, because of COVID-19.

Staff Reporter: Curt Yeomans