A Republican member of the Georgia state election board is accepting anonymous donations via an online fundraising campaign established by a local election board member with ties to the “election integrity” movement.
Janice Johnston, the state board’s vice-chair and one of the three Republican board members praised by name by Donald Trump last year, is the beneficiary of a GiveSendGo fundraising campaign established by Salleigh Grubbs, who serves on the Cobb county board of registration and elections and is first vice-chair of the Georgia Republican party.
The funds are being raised for Johnston’s defense against a lawsuit filed by American Oversight, a watchdog non-profit that has gone after state and federal officials for evading open-records laws. The group sued the state election board and Johnston individually, accusing her of withholding emails from her private email account after discovering from other Open Records Act results that her address had been on email chains.
Grubbs is a former chair of the Cobb county Republican party, who successfully petitioned the state election board to adopt a rule that gives county election officials more power to refuse to certify election results. Grubbs has since been appointed to the county’s election board. When election conspiracy theories ran rampant in Georgia in 2020, Grubbs once chased a refuse truck she believed was carrying shredded paper ballots, the Atlantic reported. There is no evidence paper ballots were discarded in that incident, election authorities have said.
She also has business before the board: she is a co-author of a proposed rule that would indemnify election board members such as herself and Johnston and allow defenses against lawsuits to be paid for with public funds.
On Wednesday morning, as the state election board (SEB) met at the Georgia capitol, $29,300 in donations had been made to the GiveSendGo campaign, including one anonymous donation of $10,000.
“To say this is a potential conflict of interest and a potential violation of Georgia’s ethics policy is, in my opinion, a laughable understatement,” said Marisa Pyle, senior democracy defense manager with All Voting Is Local Georgia. “A SEB member is considering a rule proposed by someone who has raised tens of thousands of dollars for her direct use. At the last SEB meeting, attendees distributed flyers advertising the fundraiser.”
Grubbs told the Guardian she no longer controls the account or has any “influence or access to any funds raised” on Johnston’s behalf.
“Dr Johnston has control of the page and the funds,” Grubbs wrote. “I am an advocate for raising funds for her legal defense. I think it’s not right and unfortunate that her defense from a radical leftist organization – or ANY organization is not being covered by the attorney general’s office, nor conflict counsel being paid for as she is in a completely volunteer position as a member of the SEB. I would feel the same for any volunteer giving of their time and talents for the state of Georgia.”
Georgia’s ethics law states that a person appointed to a public board may “never solicit, accept, or agree to accept gifts, loans, gratuities, discounts, favors, hospitality, or services from any person, association, or corporation under circumstances from which it could reasonably be inferred that a major purpose of the donor is to influence the performance of the member’s official duties”.
The law also says that a board member may “never take any official action with regard to any matter under circumstances in which he knows or should know that he has a direct or indirect monetary interest in the subject matter of such matter or in the outcome of such official action”.
Johnston did not answer an email seeking comment.
Pyle noted that at least four people with cases before the state election board and two members of county boards of elections, who are subject to investigation and discipline by the board, have made public donations to the GiveSendGo campaign.
“Will these donations influence future rulings on cases in their counties, especially given that Dr Johnston, the beneficiary of the fundraiser, is a member of the very board that will decide their fate?” Pyle asked. “The ethical issues at play here are dismaying and severe. Instances like these are what have led to the board losing public trust, being embroiled in controversy and costing taxpayer dollars. The voters of Georgia deserve better.”
A Georgia supreme court decision last year in the heat of the 2024 campaign season curtailed the state election board’s rule-making authority, ruling that it could not make election rules that were more restrictive than legislatively enacted laws. Undeterred, the board has been pressing lawmakers to eliminate absentee voting and to move to hand-marked paper ballots this year. It has also been re-litigating the 2020 election, issuing a subpoena for records from the Fulton county board of registration and elections for another inspection and calling on the FBI to assist.
Even though Republicans dominate the state election board, other wings of the Georgia government have stayed away from endorsing the rule-making. The office of Georgia’s attorney general, Chris Carr, has not stepped in to defend against the American Oversight lawsuit.
“When I joined this board, I was told that we could not be sued individually, that we would have to be sued as a board and that we would have representation from the attorney general’s office,” said Janelle King, a state election board member whose husband, Kelvin King, is a Republican candidate for secretary of state. “The fact that we’re having this discussion and having to pull money out of our budget to defend ourselves is appalling. It is absolutely appalling.”
