ICYMI: RightCount Chair Eric Johnson on Politically Georgia Podcast

“… all these things that the Election Board are putting in at the last second, which may not be legal, are just going to cause more confusion”

Atlanta, Ga. – In case you missed it, former State Senator Eric Johnson, a Republican and Chair of RightCount’s operations in Georgia, joined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Politically Georgia podcast today where he offered his opinion on a range of topics, including former President Trump’s forthcoming campaign stop in Savannah and the slate of last-minute election rule changes by the State Election Board. What follows is a partial transcript of today’s program.

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PATRICIA MURPHY: “Let’s move on to your role in a group called RightCount Georgia. It’s a multi-state initiative to have everyday Americans speaking to camera in some cases saying that these elections systems are trustworthy, that people should go to the polls and feel good that their vote is secure. Is anything like this going to work if Donald Trump doesn’t stop saying that the election was stolen from him and will be stolen again? I feel like that’s the elephant, so to speak, that’s the elephant in the room right now.”

ERIC JOHNSON: “The two things that I’m trying to put out there is, one, this hurts President Trump; former President Trump. We lost the U.S. Senate, we being Republicans, lost the U.S. Senate because he cast doubt on the Georgia election system. A lot of changes have been made. Most of that was all due to COVID. He didn’t really lose, he wasn’t cheated in 2020, it was COVID and the effects that that had on the election that caused that loss. But him continuing to criticize the election system lost the U.S. Senate for Republicans and I sure wish we could have that back. The second thing is, I’ve been at this game for a long time and what goes around comes around. And when you try to stack the rules to favor your guys or your party, then they’ll come back and bite you. We’ll impeach you; you impeach us. We’re going to get rule of the 60-vote margin for federal judges, McConnell comes and applies it to the Supreme Court. In Georgia, we said that early voting will help Republicans, and it has but no excuse absentee ballots have helped the Democrats. So, all these things that the Election Board are putting in at the last second, which may not be legal, are just going to cause more confusion. Let’s say Trump wins Georgia by 5,000 votes, well who is going to use the rules they just put in place to delay the certification of the Trump victory while the Democrats go to try and find votes.  I think it can backfire. It’s time to calm down. Our elections are fair. They are accountable. They go after cheaters, and we’ve got cases that have done that. Let’s just tell everybody that their vote counts and go out and vote. And then we can analyze the after-effect like we did in 2020 and 2022, and fix apparent problems in a bipartisan way.”

GREG BLUESTEIN: “Eric we’ve heard Democrats raise alarms about these election changes for years now but what’s striking to me is all the efforts Republicans are making to build confidence in the election system. Governor Deal and Senator Chambliss have hit the road to defend the system. We had Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on the show just yesterday saying the same and Republicans have even sued to block the changes. Your group is also in the mix. So you seeing any impact, especially when it comes to targeting conservatives who might have bought into Trump’s lies about election fraud?”

ERIC JOHNSON: “Well we certainly haven’t had any impact on the State Election Board but the Republicans have had an effect, you know, the drop boxes are now inside and under secure cameras. You have to be a citizen to vote. All of the changes that were made after 2020 and 2022, should assure people that their vote counts. That there is accountability and insight into it. I used to be a poll worker and a poll watcher for the party and those are hardworking people. They’re not going to cheat. You know there may be somebody out there, I’ve always said that every election you’re going to have a handful of cheaters. Somebody is going to vote their dead mother-in-law’s ballot for them. There’s going to be equipment failures and human error, there’s always a little of that going on and you can’t get rid of it. But you can make it as safe as possible and secure as possible. The whole world looks at the U.S. for having a good election system and we need to keep that reputation.”

PATRICIA MURPHY: “Eric, on the State Election Board, who has the ultimately authority over the Board as far you understand? If the board takes steps that are deemed not in the best interest of counties or in the interest of voters, is there any backstop to that between now and Election Day? Is anybody in charge of this Board?”

ERIC JOHNSON: “Well, according to the letter from Attorney General Chris Carr, if they cross the line and begin legislating instead of implementing the laws that the Legislature has passed, they may have crossed the line. But you have to have standing. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know that. Obviously, the governor appoints the chairman. The Democrats have a member and then the Speaker, and the party in power, and the Senate, those are the three right now, what did the president call them? Bulldogs?…”

PATRICIA MURPHY: “Pitbulls for victory, I think were the words.”

GREG BLUESTEIN: “Yeah, Senator, on that note, when the former president did call these three basically governing members that control the majority of five-member board, “pitbulls,” do you wonder if that kind of rhetoric makes election laws, that are theoretically nonpartisan, even more divisive and even harder for Republicans to sort of defend?”

ERIC JOHNSON: “Well and that’s the kind of thing that raises the awareness of what this board is and then makes people call into question, ‘well, is my vote going to count,’ and ‘is this going to be stolen,’ and if they keep making these onerous regulations at the last minute. I mean, Long County down here might have 2,000 votes. There are other counties that have 200,000. The hand counting and looking over shoulders, challenging voters, it’s hard to treat every county the same which is what they’re trying to do. I trust the Secretary of State and what he has done to train and implement the laws of this state. And of course, Governor Kemp was a former Secretary of State. So, both of them have a lot of experience in this field and we ought to trust them as elected Republicans to run the election as fairly and as quickly as they can.”

PATRICIA MURPHY: “A follow up question to something that you said, if it is deemed that they are getting into legislating instead of simply making rules, based on your legislative experience, does this look like legislating in your opinion?”

ERIC JOHNSON: “Yes, I do. I think requiring them to delay the certification requirements is one of them that they’re trying to bypass if they get challenged and they can’t get the handcount and get the certification done in ten hours, two hours or whatever the requirement is, that would be going over Georgia law.”

To listen to today’s episode of the AJC’s Politically Georgia podcast in full, click here.

This interview comes on the heels of Senator Johnson’s op-ed on the State Election Board’s rule changes that appeared on Friday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

For more information on RightCount’s operations in Georgia visit www.rightcount.org/georgia.