Georgia GOP’s scandal makes its ‘election integrity’ argument very awkward

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In a Republican Party with no shortage of election deniers, Georgia Republicans have arguably been the most rabid in pushing laws to support their claims — despite evidence to the contrary — that voter fraud can sway elections. Gov. Brian Kemp and fellow Georgia Republicans have occasionally been at odds, but they have been in sync as far as supporting laws that make it easier to purge people from voter rolls and strict voter suppression measures that have been shown to disproportionately affect nonwhite voters. It should go without saying: If you’re going to push false claims about voter fraud in the name of “election integrity,” you better make sure your own house is clean. It should go without saying: If you’re going to push false claims about voter fraud in the name of “election integrity,” you better make sure your own house is clean. And yet, time and again, we’ve seen Republicans being charged and occasionally even convicted of election fraud despite their accusatory crusade. And the Georgia GOP is no different. On Friday, Georgia Republicans overwhelmingly voted to remove the state party’s first vice chairman, Brian Pritchard, from his position after a judge found in March that he had voted illegally in nine elections in 2008 and 2010. (Pritchard has denied any wrongdoing.) As The Associated Press reported: In March, Administrative Law Judge Lisa Boggs found that Pritchard was still on probation when he moved to north Georgia’s Gilmer County after he pleaded guilty to forging signatures on two checks worth $38,000 in his home state of Pennsylvania in 1996. She ruled that Pritchard lied when he registered to vote in 2008 by swearing he wasn’t serving a sentence for a felony conviction. Boggs found that Pritchard voted illegally in nine elections in 2008 and 2010, fined him $5,000, ordered that he receive a public reprimand and ordered him to repay the $375 that the State Election Board spent investigating the case. In a statement, Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon said the vote “demonstrates how serious we take election integrity.” That echoes statements we’ve heard from other conservatives, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. But you might want to hold off on praising them for taking a moral stance here. As best I can tell, right-wingers aren’t questioning the results of these elections. So it seems clear what game Republicans are playing here. They apparently think it’s easier to throw their own under the bus — so they can keep portraying Democrats as the true election cheaters.