Democratic Fulton County commissioner announces bid to become Georgia secretary of state

ATLANTA (AP) — An elected leader in Georgia’s Fulton County, which drew national attention after the 2020 election when President Donald Trump claimed without proof that voter fraud there cost him victory in Georgia, announced that she is running to be the state’s top election official.

Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett planned to hold a news conference Thursday morning to launch her campaign for secretary of state. She joins a Democratic primary field that already includes former Fulton County State Court Judge Penny Brown Reynolds, who had a brief reality TV career, as well as Adrian Consonery Jr. and Cam T. Ashling.

Barrett, who was elected to the Fulton Board of Commissioners in 2022, was a vocal part of a Democratic majority that last year refused to vote to approve two Republican nominees to the county election board, saying their past actions made them unsuitable. A judge ultimately found the Board of Commissioners in civil contempt and imposed a fine of $10,000 a day until the nominees are appointed, though the ruling is currently on hold pending appeal.

Speaking during a Board of Commissioners meeting in August, Barrett asserted that “elections are under attack in this country.”

“I ran for this seat, in a large part, because I wanted to be in a spot to defend the integrity of our elections, and I stand by that commitment today,” she said at the time, arguing that a judge could not order her and her colleagues to vote in a particular way.

Current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, is running for governor this year. Republican Gabriel Sterling, who served as one of Raffensperger’s top deputies, is running to replace him. Both Raffensperger and Sterling gained national prominence — and the ire of Trump and his supporters — when they defended Georgia’s presidential election results in 2020 after Trump called Raffensperger and urged him to help “find” the votes needed to overturn Democratic President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state.

Rounding out the Republican primary are state Rep. Tim Fleming, Vernon Jones and Kelvin King and Vernon Jones. Fleming helms a legislative study committee that has been looking into how the state conducts its elections. Jones is a former Democratic state representative who switched parties and has championed Trump and his claims of a stolen election. King is married to Janelle King, a member of the Trump-endorsed majority on the State Elections Board.