After their party spent months trying to throw Republican election officials in jail for not rubber-stamping election results, Democrats in Fulton County are now claiming to have the same discretionary power they denied their Republican counterparts.
Judge David Emerson heard a civil contempt case Wednesday after Democrats on the Fulton County Board of Commissioners defied a previous court order instructing them to approve two Republican election board members, Julie Adams and Jason Frazier. Emerson later released an order Wednesday stating the county commission will be fined $10,000 per day starting Friday for violating the court order to appoint Adams and Frazier.
Notably, Adams is an incumbent member and is currently still on the board. But Frazier, who was recently nominated by the Republican Party of Fulton County, has not yet been confirmed. Frazier is replacing outgoing Republican member Mike Hegan, who resigned, effective at the end of August. Without Frazier’s confirmation, Hagen’s seat will remain empty.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Thomas L. Oliver III, the attorney for the Republicans, noted that the Democrat commissioners have defied several court orders and that Democrat members of the board have stated on social media that they will continue to defy court orders on confirming Adams and Frazier.
Don Samuel, the lawyer for the Democrat commissioners, argued that the Republican position is that members of the commission are not allowed to have a dissenting vote and are merely there to “rubber-stamp” appointments.
The position of the Republican Party — as described in Samuel’s words — is that members “cannot vote by your spirit, you may not vote. No. You are nothing but a rubber stamp. You have no authority.”
Samuel added that Republicans believe that someone who “dissents” and wants to vote a different way should be liable for criminal contempt.
But that’s not the position Republicans came up with — it’s the very position of the Democrats that Samuel is trying to defend.
The reason Democrats are refusing to confirm Adams and Frazier is that Adams, in part, also believes voting is discretionary and that she shouldn’t be forced to vote in a particular way.
During the 2024 election cycle, the Democratic Party of Georgia targeted Adams for choosing not to certify primary election results, sending a letter to the Fulton County Board of Elections warning they would bring criminal charges for any member who did not rubber-stamp the results of the March presidential preference primary.
Adams then sued to obtain clarification as to whether voting to certify the March presidential primary was discretionary. Adams alleged that she was “denied … access to essential election materials and processes,” and therefore could not, in good faith, vote to certify the election results — or, in the words of Samuel, “rubber-stamp” the results.
Ultimately, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that “no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance” even if the results are “non-sensical.”
Democrat commissioner Mo Ivory previously cited Adams’ lawsuit challenging the rubber-stamping of “nonsensical” election results as her reason not to vote to confirm Adams, as The Federalist previously reported.
Yet Ivory, along with other Democrat board members, now asserts that voting is, indeed, discretionary.
The message is clear: Republicans are expected to rubber-stamp whatever Democrats insist on, while Democrats claim they have the freedom to give their approval when it benefits them.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
