Georgia State Election Board and Atlanta’s Fulton County spar over election monitor plan

ATLANTA (AP) — With less than a month to go before voters head to the polls, the State Election Board is embroiled in a fight with Georgia’s most populous county over a monitoring team to observe the county’s election practices.

The monitoring team was part of a resolution of a complaint against Fulton County stemming from the 2020 election. The State Election Board in May found that the county violated some parts of the state election code. It voted to issue a letter of reprimand, which included instructions for an agreement on a mutually acceptable monitor to be entered into by the board’s August meeting.

But the county and state election boards have been unable reach agreement. The county favors a team proposed by Ryan Germany, a former chief lawyer for the secretary of state’s office, and the Atlanta-based Carter Center. The Donald Trump-endorsed majority on the State Election Board has proposed an alternative slate that includes people who questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In late August the county went ahead and hired its team without agreement from the state board, and it has been in place monitoring pre-election practices for over a month. But the disagreement between the county and state boards continued to fester and escalated significantly this week.

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