Even in an election year where standards of fair play seem to plummet with each passing day, last Monday’s attack by Georgia’s U.S. senators marked a new low.
Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue called on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign, alleging that he had “failed the people of Georgia” and “failed to deliver honest and transparent elections.”
Those are shocking charges for this pair to level at the person — and the office — responsible for overseeing elections here. They’re even more stunning, given that Perdue and Loeffler fired their broadside against a fellow Republican — not that party affiliation should count when the integrity of a core democratic institution is under attack.
How have Raffensperger & Co. somehow “failed” at honesty or transparency?
Good question.
Perdue and Loeffler offered no specifics, at least not for the record. And that is what should make their campaign-speak attack message so unacceptable to fair-minded Georgians.
Specific, actionable allegations based even somewhat loosely in facts can be assessed and investigated. Which is appropriate.
Hyperbole and sly accusations cannot.
Reckless barely begins to touch on what Perdue and Loeffler have done. Without presenting reasons, they have assaulted Georgia’s election system. That is dangerous behavior in this tense moment, both for this state and for the nation that is watching this risky sideshow.
In past editorials, this newspaper has at times been critical of Raffensperger’s management of aspects of the elections system he is charged with overseeing. Too many election hardware glitches is one thing. It’s improperly far beyond that to allege that, under Raffensperger, Georgia “has failed to deliver honest” elections
We’ve seen no evidence of that. In an AJC interview Monday, Raffensperger said, “What people really want at the end of the day — I think both sides should desire honest, fair elections. That’s what we’ve been working for.”
We’ve also weighed in on issues around Georgia’s 2018 election that we believe helped get us to this present place. In a contest that saw the closest vote for governor in half a century in Georgia, Kemp’s opponent, Stacey Abrams, refused to concede in a race narrowly decided by about 55,000 votes.
It’s not hard to see in hindsight that Abrams’ decision around the election’s result is now a tactic being applied from the White House on down.
As we’ve said before, too, Gov. Brian Kemp left us open to this result. Kemp would not step down from his job as secretary of state while running for higher office in 2018. That meant he oversaw an election in which his name was also on the ballot.
That decision had the expected effect.
