BOC chairman Mike Boyce in his weekly email newsletter sharply criticized Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for shifting the blame for Georgia’s ongoing election debacle to county elections officials, and said he should accept responsibility or resign.
In particular Boyce praised the work of Cobb’s elections Director Janine Eveler.
In an earlier video he called for Raffensperger’s resignation, but in his newsletter softened his position, and said that if the Secretary of State took responsibility, Boyce would reassess his call for resignation.
The newsletter entry read as follows:
Most of my professional life has been associated with government—big and small. Many of my decisions as Chairman are based on that experience. I am more tolerant of some of the mistakes that people make in government because I have been in their shoes.
I have watched with understanding but growing concern the challenges of implementing the new voting system. As these words are published the final voting results are still unknown and this condition will remain so into the weekend. Given that 143 precincts were open on Tuesday, all with new voting machines, it was no surprise that we had problems at some of them. There were mitigating circumstances for many. But I have learned that once you have to defend a position to the public you generally have lost the argument. So we are going to own up to the problems and fix them.
During a recent interview with the media, I said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger should resign over his handling of Tuesday’s primary election. I have since sent the Secretary of State an email stating if he would own up to his office’s responsibility for the problems, and work toward a solution to prevent them from happening again, I would reassess my position.
Shifting the blame to Janine Eveler and her elections team is not warranted. They have all been true public servants and are continuing to do so.
This endorsement comes from watching all that they have been doing over many months to prepare for this election. We should be optimistic that a record number of people voted in this primary and did so by absentee balloting.
Every one of these absentee ballots has to be validated and scanned. It takes time. The general election in November will draw even more voters and we can expect similar circumstances. As much as I believe the current system is broken, I don’t see it being replaced or repaired in a significant way before November.
What I can assure you is that the elections team is taking the necessary measures to ensure that your vote is protected and counted. Our County motto is Expect the Best. I am extremely confident that the voters will receive this from another group of current heroes—our poll workers and elections team.
