Three members of the five-member Georgia State Election Board voted last week to send to the state Attorney General Office two Oconee County cases because of possible violations of Georgia law.
One of the cases involved a “residency issue,” while the other involved what was labeled as “ballot harvesting,” though the case dealt not with ballots but with petitions submitted to get two candidates for the Oconee County Board of Education on the ballot as independents in 2022.
Individuals named in the investigations by the Georgia Secretary of State were not required to appear before the Georgia Election Board, and none of the three persons listed in the “residency issue” case appeared, nor did any of the seven persons named in the “ballot harvesting” case.
Attorney Adams Sparks, representing Oconee County resident Julie Crowe, one of the citizens listed in the “ballot harvesting” case, did appear before the Board, asking that the case involving Crowe be dismissed.
Sparks said he was responding only to “the summary of investigation” by the Secretary of State Office and had not been given access to “the full file.”
The agenda for the meeting does not list the names of the persons involved in the two cases, though Board Vice Chair Janice Johnston, who presided at the meeting, did read the names.
Eric Gisler, elected on Tuesday to the Georgia House of Representatives from the 121st House District as a Democrat, and Harold Thompson, current chair of the Oconee County Democratic Party, are named in the case along with Crowe, according to Johnston.
State Election Board Chair John Fervier and Member Sarah Tindall Ghazal did not attend the meeting on Tuesday, and Vice Chair Johnston and Board Members Rick Jeffares and Janelle King voted to send both Oconee County cases to the Attorney General. Ghazal is the only Democrat on the Board.
Nature Of Case
Sparks told the Board that he was speaking on behalf of his client, Crowe, and that “this case involves allegations regarding a grassroots effort to circulate petitions for ballot access.”
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| Screen Shot Sparks 12/9/2025 |
“This was back in the spring and summer of 2022 involving Oconee County School Board elections,” he said. “Two independent candidates were seeking access to the ballot and my client, Miss Crowe, was one of the circulators that were sending around and trying to get eligible voters to enter their information on the petition.”
“More specifically,” he continued, “this case really concerns whether there's sufficient evidence to say there was a violation of the only statute I saw referenced in the summary of investigation, which is 21-2-563.”
That statute states: “Any person who knowingly and willfully: (1) Signs any nomination petition without having the qualifications prescribed by this chapter; (2) Sets any false statement opposite the signature on a nomination petition; (3) Signs more nomination petitions than permitted by this chapter; (4) Makes a false statement in any affidavit required by this chapter to be appended to or to accompany a nomination petition; (5) Signs any name not his or her own to any nomination petition; or (6) Materially alters any nomination petition without the consent of the signers shall be guilty of a felony.”
“I'm asking for a dismissal, or, if not a dismissal, then a letter of instruction concerning OCGA 21-2-170,” Sparks said.
Georgia Code 21-2-170 spells out the procedures to be followed for “Nomination of candidates by petition,” including the nature of the form used, who is qualified to sign, when a petition can be circulated, and how many names must be on the petition for it to be successful.
Sparks’s Comments
Sparks said he did not get the full copy of the summary until after Thanksgiving and has been told release of the full investigative report to him and his client “is not authorized.”
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| Screen Shot King 12/9/2025 |
“I'll make my standing objection,” he said. “I do think we should get the full file.”
“There's a few reasons I'm asking for dismissal,” he continued. “One is because, at least from the summary and investigation I've been able to do since getting notice of the hearing here today, there's simply not sufficient evidence that the violation alleged occurred.”
“We're talking about an amateur petition drive here,” he said.
“This is a bunch of friends and neighbors in Oconee County who said, ‘We want to see our friends and neighbors on the ballot as well. So, we're going to do our best to figure out how we're going to get these petitions signed and submitted and verified.’”
“There was no training that they received,” he said. “There was no training that they were offered. They're doing the best they can as engaged citizens, which presumably we want here in Georgia.”
“There were only four they confirmed that they said may have allowed spouse A to sign the signature of spouse B. May have. That'll be important in a moment,” he said. “Beyond that, there's no other evidence that I've been provided that would show the violation actually alleged of here. My point in terms of the evidence is that, at worst, this is a matter of mistake.”
“I cannot sit here now and tell you that over three years ago, every single entry on that petition was 100 percent letter perfect,” Sparks said. “It was a while ago. I wasn't there. Miss Crow wasn't there for any sheets that she was not circulating.”
“But I can tell you that she made every effort to adhere to the law, to do it right, and had no intent, demonstrated or otherwise, to deceive or to submit signatures that she would have known were false, that were not entered properly,” he said.
“I'm not an attorney, so I don't want to have to go back and forth,” Board Member King said. “So, I make a motion that we send this to the Attorney General's Office and let them sort this out.” The motion passed with all three Board Members present voting yes.
Others Named In Case
Sparks made no reference in his comments and responses to questions from the Board, which lasted nearly 30 minutes, to any of the other persons listed by Vice Chair Johnston as included in the “ballot harvesting” case.
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| Screen Shot Johnston 12/10/2025 |
Tuesday was election day for the Special Election for House District 121, which Gisler won. Johnston did not indicate that either Gisler or Thompson had responded publicly to the investigation report.
No one from the Secretary of State Office spoke about the investigation, and no one from Oconee County was present.
Vice Chair Johnston, in calling for a vote, said “There's evidence to suggest the following nomination petition circulators allowed petitioners to sign a nomination petition for someone other than themselves, which is contrary to the oath contained on the circulators affidavit that they signed, Julie Crowe, Eric Gisler, Harold Thompson, in violation of 2-2-563 improper signing.”
Johnston continued: “and evidence to suggest the petitioner signed a nomination petition for someone other than themselves,” listing four additional names.
I used the search function on the State Election Board, which leads to the Secretary of State web page, to try to find information about the case, as well as about the “residence issue” case.
I was not able to find any documents related to either of the two Oconee County cases before the Board on Tuesday. I have filed open records requests for those document both with the Election Board and with the Secretary of State Office.
The “residency issue” case also is numbered as from 2022.
In reading the names for the “residency issue,” Vice Chair Johnston identified one of the three persons as the complainant.
“Do I hear a motion concerning this case?” Johnston said after reading the names, without any discussion or evidence presented. A motion to send the names of two of the individuals to Attorney General's office for “further review” passed with the three votes.
Background On Petitions
In the spring of 2022, a group of parents who, during the school year, had asked for more responsiveness from Oconee County Schools on a variety of issues, recruited Ryan Repetske and Melissa Eagling to run as independents in the November 2022 election.
The Democratic Party had not put up a candidate in the May primary of that year, and many of its leaders joined in the petition drive to get Repetske and Eagling on the ballot.
Gisler, then chair of the Oconee County Democratic Party, actually submitted the petitions to the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration for Repetske and Eagling because Repetske and Eagling were not able to do so.
On July 25, 2022, the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration voted to place the names of Repetske and Eagling on the ballot as independents after then Director of Elections and Registration Rebecca Anglin said Repetske and Eagling had met the requirement that each get 1,425 verified signatures of voters on petitions.
Anglin said 197 signatures on the petition forms of each of the two candidates had been rejected.
“If we found any signing that we believed the person signed it did not truly sign their name, all of those names will be turned over to the Secretary of State,” Anglin said at the time.
At its August meeting, Anglin told the Board that 133 signatures on the petitions for Repetsky were “invalid,” and that 129 on the petitions for Eagling were invalid.
She said she and her staff had found evidence of husbands signing for wives and wives signing for husbands.
The county sent this information to the Secretary of State Office for investigation, setting up SEB2022-156 “Ballot Harvesting.”
The Oconee County Republican Party also filed a complaint with the Secretary of State regarding the petition drive. The Party’s representative on the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration had voted to keep Repetske and Eagling off the ballot because of the rejection of signatures.
Repetske and Eagling were defeated in the November election.
District Attorney Race
The Oconee and Clarke County Republican parties did not put up a candidate to run in the 2024 Republican Party primary for Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney, and Kalki Yalamanchili opted to run as an independent.
Oconee County Republican Party leaders supported Yalamanchili and his petition drive, but Yalamanchili raised enough money to hire professional to manage that effort.
Yalamanchili submitted 16,021 signatures on the petitions asking that his name be on the ballot.
Of those signatures, 3,672 were rejected, and an additional 2,382 were determined to be of persons who were not registered.
Only 4,944 valid signatures were required. Yalamanchili’s accepted 9,967 signatures greatly exceeded that number
I circulated petitions among my neighbors and friendship network for both the School Board candidates in 2022 and for Yalamanchili in 2024.
Cruz Comments To State Election Board
At its second session last week–on Wednesday, Dec. 10–the state Election Board heard comment on a petition for a rule amendment that would have required the state to use signed paper ballots rather than the current machine-generated ballots that contain a QR code used to count votes.
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| Screen Shot Cruz 12/10/2025 |
Oconee County activist Victoria Cruz spoke on behalf of the petition, saying that “The foundation of our constitutional republic is the right to choose our representatives through elections that are free, fair, simple, transparent, and verifiable by every citizen regardless of their education or means.”
“The consent of the governed expressed through the sacred act of voting is the sole legitimate source of government authority,” she continued.
“When any system, technology, or cabal, whether domestic or foreign, subverts this consent through fraud, coercion, complexity, or obfuscation,” she said. “it's the right and duty of the people to reject such tyranny and institute reforms rooted in clarity, accessibility, and public oversight–all of which are lacking in our current election system.”
“The integrity of elections conducted with hand marked, hand counted paper ballots under the watchful eyes of the citizens is the cornerstone of a free republic,” Cruz said, “and no machine, bureaucracy or unaccountable actor should stand between the people and their voice.”
The Board voted 2 to 2 on the rule change, meaning it failed.
Voting for the change were Jeffares and King. Voting against were Ghazal and Johnston.
Ghazal joined the meeting remotely to vote on the petition. Chair Fervier did not attend.
Fervier was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
Ghazal is the Democratic Party appointee, and Johnston is the Republican Party appointee.
Jeffares was appointed by the Georgia Senate, and King was appointed by the Georgia House of Representatives.
The Georgia Office of Inspector General has found in a story reported on Sunday (12/14/2025) that Johnston violated the Election Board’s code of conduct by attending a rally by Donald Trump last year at Georgia State University, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
At that rally, Trump praised Johnston, King, and Jeffares, according to the paper, calling them “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”
Johnston, King, and Jeffares have often been at odds with both Fervier and Ghazal.
Video
The two videos below are on the YouTube Channel of the state Board of Elections.
The first is of the Dec. 9 meeting, and the comments regarding the two Oconee County cases begin at 5:14:12 in the video.
The second video is of the Dec. 10 meeting of the State Board of Elections.
Cruz began her comments at 49:35 in the video.
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