Incompetent Georgia Officials Lied to the Nation, and Media Went Along With It

From 2019:

Fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, Kemp’s successor as secretary of state, has been pursuing the same approach to the job since taking over in January: Ignore election security experts and malign any advice coming from Washington. Raffensperger and his staff are pushing ahead with a $150 million plan to switch the state to new voting machines that an array of experts warn would be susceptible to hacking. He’s dismissed critics of the devices — including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine — as fringe figures. And his deputy recently scolded the tea party-aligned group FreedomWorks, which also opposes the machines, by saying its Georgia-born and -based top policy executive doesn’t understand how things work in the state.

Politico: Deny, defy, disdain: Georgia election chief adopts familiar voting security strategy. Who else was behind this push in Georgia?

In a letter to FreedomWorks executive Jason Pye, who signed the Feb. 27 warning to state lawmakers, Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs described FreedomWorks as “a far-removed DC organization” and said Pye, who was born in Georgia and still lives there, did not “fully comprehend the climate of our state, the demands of our communities, or the objectives of this office.” (Fuchs did not explain how Georgia’s “climate” obviated the fundamental cybersecurity risks of barcode devices.)

Fuchs also told Pye that barcode devices were popular with Georgia election supervisors, who “understand better than anyone the day-to-day challenges of protecting, preserving, and promoting election integrity.” The message was reminiscent of rhetoric from Kemp and other conservative secretaries: The true voting security experts, they say, are the election workers on the ground, not some far-off ivory-tower academics. ...Fuchs’ caustic letter and Facebook comments stunned many veterans of Georgia politics. “It was immature, it was unprofessional, and it showed tremendously thin skin,” said one longtime observer of state politics, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “If this is the way the secretary is going to run his office, he’s going to have a very difficult four years.”

Huh. What else has Fuchs been up to?

TAC: Something Is Rotten In The Georgia Secretary Of State’s Office

Two recordings of conversations between President Trump and officials in the Georgia Secretary of State’s office are at issue in a growing controversy. Both played a major role in stoking a narrative about Trump trying to steal the election by throwing out ballots.

The first was made on December 23, but it was not released until last week in the Wall Street Journal. That recording prompted a mammoth correction from the Washington Post, which in its original story erroneously reported that Trump told investigator Frances Watson to “find the fraud” and that she would be a “national hero” if she did.

The person who gave the erroneous quotes for the December 23 story has been identified by the Washington Post as Jordan Fuchs, Deputy Secretary of State of Georgia. She gave an interview to the Post‘s Erik Wemple on Tuesday, telling him “I believe the story accurately reflected the investigator’s interpretation of the call. The only mistake here was in the direct quotes, and they should have been more of a summary.” ...As for the original, erroneous characterizations given by Fuchs, if she was truly concerned about illegal pressure being applied on the phone call, which Watson claims she did not feel, she could have gone to law enforcement and preserved the call record. Instead, she went to the Washington Post and the recording was put in the trash.