Catoosa Elections Board Tramples Law to Disregard Signed Republican Oath Requirement

Ringgold, GA – Today the Catoosa County Board of Elections voted to illegally qualify County Commission RINO incumbent Chuck Harris — in spite of his failure to sign the loyalty oath to the Republican Party. A formal elector challenge was filed by Britt Fant, a Catoosa GOP member.

State law allows political parties to require a loyalty oath from all candidates wishing to qualify with that party, and the Republican Party of Catoosa County requires that oath. In previous Catoosa cases argued in state court regarding blocking candidates from qualifying, judges have repeatedly affirmed that the political parties have the power to condition qualifying upon whether the candidate has signed and submitted the oath. Yet the Catoosa Board of Elections voted 3-2 to allow Chuck Harris to appear on the Republican Primary ballot without signing the oath.

Because Harris did not sign the oath as required by law, the Catoosa GOP did not include him on their certified list of candidates that the Catoosa Board of Elections publicly posted after the qualifying period ended. State law says that no candidate shall be removed or added after qualifying ends. However, somehow mysteriously Chuck Harris’ name appeared on the Georgia Secretary of State’s web site as a candidate that had duly qualified.

“The issue here is – did Chuck Harris do the things under the law and under the party rules which are required? And he didn’t,” said Alex Johnson, attorney for Britt Frant.

The concern about this candidates loyalty to the party is heightened by the fact that the delegates at the 2025 Catoosa convention voted to disassociate with Mr. Harris and articulated their grievances against him in a resolution banning him from the party.  The resolution was passed by more than 100 Catoosa GOP delegates and prohibited the party leadership from qualifying Chuck Harris as a Republican.  They even banned him from GOP property and from attending any future GOP events!

The resolution says that while serving as a commissioner Chuck Harris failed to uphold Republican principles when

(1) he opposed the freedom to raise chickens in agricultural zones,

(2) when he voted to raise taxes, and

(3) when he violated section 17 of the Catoosa County Charter by profiting off the county through the sale of medical supplies to the county which is prohibited for elected officials.

However, today’s legal challenge was not based upon the resolution passed at the Catoosa GOP convention. Rather this challenge was based upon the candidate’s failure to sign the loyalty oath.

The loyalty oath reads: “I do hereby, swear, or affirm my allegiance to the Republican party.”

Chuck Harris and his attorney Tom Weldon both pretended like Catoosa GOP had mistreated him by not informing him about the loyalty oath missing from his paperwork.

But the law doesn’t require the party to hand him any documents. Furthermore, why should the Republican Party encourage a candidate to sign a loyalty oath to the party when they truly believe the candidate would be guilty of false swearing if he did sign it?

Even those who disagree with Catoosa GOP and believe the delegates are mistaken about Harris’s loyalty to the party would likely acknowledge that the Catoosa GOP volunteers sincerely believe Harris is a Democrat in disguise.

During the hearing, Catoosa Board of Elections member Jim Coles asked excellent questions that forced Harris to acknowledge that he had run for office twice before. He was present at the hearings in 2024 where the legal requirements surrounding candidate qualification were discussed at great length, yet he claims that he did not remember signing the loyalty oath to the Republican Party when he previously ran and did not remember that step being one of the requirements for being qualified on the Republican ballot.

Alex Johnson pointed out in his closing statement that candidate Chuck Harris even included a copy of the loyalty oath required by the party rules in a document he filed on Thursday with the local court the week of qualifying!

“Chuck Harris is an elected official who makes laws — who should know the law,” said Johnson. “He had a copy of it. He filed it in court on Thursday [the week of qualifying]. He didn’t sign it. He didn’t submit it, and his attorney was there and should have known it.“

Indeed, Harris’ attorney, Weldon is a former State Representative who would have also had experience signing the loyalty oath each time he had previously run for office. Weldon was present with Harris at the Catoosa Board of Elections office when Harris’ paperwork was transferred from the Catoosa GOP to the Catoosa Board of Elections, and he had the opportunity to help Harris inspect the paperwork and make sure that the loyalty oath was included. But he did not.

Truth is often stranger than fiction, but it appears highly suspicious that both Harris and his attorney would overlook this essential step in qualification given the fact that Harris still has colleagues engaged in ongoing litigation with Catoosa GOP where their fundamental argument is that they, in 2024, met all the legal requirements to qualify as a Republican candidate: they “filed the paperwork, paid the fee, and signed the oath.” Harris has attended many of those hearings and publicly commented on them.

Weldon argued that Harris was not being treated fairly by the Catoosa GOP since they did not remind him to turn in his loyalty oath. Weldon pointed to other candidates that the Catoosa GOP had sent reminders in order to assure they submitted all the required documents in time. But the Catoosa GOP had already communicated publicly that they did not want to qualify Harris and so he had no reasonable expectation that they would go above and beyond to remind him of his obligation to turn in a loyalty oath — particularly since they had already stated that they did not believe any such loyalty oath would be anything other than disingenuous.

“The other side is mocking civil rights law every time they say ‘you need to be treated equally. You can’t have disparate treatment.’ That is talking about race and sex discrimination,” said Alex Johnson. “It’s not talking about political parties. Political parties have a right to associate with people who support their platform. That’s the point of a political party is to get your platform enacted. The Republican Party doesn’t want Chuck Harris because Chuck Harris isn’t supporting the platform! Rightly or wrongly, that is what came out of their convention.”

Alex continued: “I think Republicans and Democrats both agree that we should follow the rule of law. The rule of law is what has been presented today by us. … There is no requirement in the law that the Republican Party provide anything to candidates. That is not in the law.”

“We have to have parties that treat people the same,” said Tom Weldon, attorney for Chuck Harris.

Weldon argued that Catoosa GOP was “an acting governmental agency” while conducting candidate qualifying, because the party receives a portion of the qualification fee paid by the candidates, and therefore did not have a legal right to discriminate. This theory is absurd and not supported by law or precedent. A political party does not temporarily become a governmental agency just because they are allowed by law to conduct candidate qualifying. Legal precedent shows clearly that political parties have the right to not associate with candidates with whom they do not wish to associate. This was affirmed just last year by the 11th Circuit Court ruling which stated: “[A] political party’s right to freedom of association encompasses the right to exclude candidate[s] in the party primary in order to protect itself from those with adverse political principles. (Duke v. Cleland).”

If Weldon’s argument is true, and political parties cannot discriminate in which candidates they qualify, then Socialist Bernie Sanders could run on the Republican primary while spouting socialism. This would mean a Libertarian could also run on the Democrat ballot and undermine their platform and destroy their credibility on issues that are important to Democrat voters. This would result in chaos.

Weldon’s argument displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of political parties. If a party has no ideological boundaries by which they discriminate, they cease to be a political party. If everyone meets the definition of Republican, then the term has no meaning. Your “big tent” ceases to be a tent at all.

“It would be atrocious for the government to say that the Democrat Party has to support Donald Trump. It would be atrocious for the government to say that the Democrat Party has to qualify some Trump supporter to run in this county as a Democrat. That wouldn’t be right. That wouldn’t be fair.”

On the vote as to whether to qualify Chuck Harris as a Republican without requiring him to sign a loyalty oath by the deadline, Jim Coles and Jennifer Motter were the only two members of the Catoosa Board of Elections who voted “no.” Harris was allowed on the primary ballot by a vote of 3 to 2. Coles and Motter are the Republican-appointed members of the county Board of Elections.

It is disappointing that the Board of Elections would dismiss the clear text of the state code and override the will of a majority of about 200 delegates at the Catoosa Convention. They wanted to stop publicly associating with Chuck Harris. Harris indicated he was willing to sign the loyalty oath today, but the Catoosa Elections Board didn’t even make Chuck Harris’ qualification conditional upon his signing the loyalty oath today.

Republicans across America are becoming increasingly concerned about undercover Democrats running under the Republican label. We saw it in Ohio, and North Carolina just recently, where self-identified Democrat progressives attempted to run on the Republican primary. Nevertheless, the Catoosa BOE was willing to force a candidate on the Republican ballot while the party delegates go down kicking and screaming that they don’t trust he is a Republican.

“We are disappointed to see the Board of Elections once again violate our freedom of association rights guaranteed by the First Amendment,” said Joanna Hildreth, the Catoosa GOP Chairwoman. “This is America. Just as the government can’t force a Baptist church to accept a Muslim as a pastor, the government should not force Catoosa GOP to associate with someone who does not share our values and didn’t even sign an oath of allegiance.”

If Chuck Harris is loyal to the Republican Party, why would he ignore the party platform and raise taxes?

If Chuck Harris is loyal to the party, why would he ignore the pleas of party activists to enjoy the basic freedom to keep chickens on their own property?

If Harris is loyal to the Republican party why would he not honor the will of 100+ Catoosa GOP delegates who didn’t want his name on their ballot? Why didn’t he try to please them while he was in office before they felt the need to take such an extreme measure as to demand he “cease and desist” from calling himself a Republican?

It took a lot of nerve for the Catoosa Board of Elections to do this and was a huge insult to the Republican Party of Catoosa County. This sent a message to the party that if the BOE is convinced that someone is a Republican, who cares what the 100+ Catoosa delegates who operate the party think?

But the Catoosa County Republican Party is not discouraged. Britt Fant intends to challenge today’s decision in an appeal to Superior Court.