Ringgold, GA — On Tuesday, primary voters in Catoosa County voted 77% in favor of having the local Republican Party organization protect the Republican Primary ballot from undercover Democrat candidates.

The question read: “Do you believe that anyone, even closet Democrats, should be able to run on the Republican primary ballots?”

76.82% of Republican voters said, “No.”

This comes after the Catoosa GOP attempted to deny specific commission candidates a place on the primary ballot who had a track record of imposing anti-Republican policies.

In case there was any confusion, Catoosa voters made it abundantly clear when a whopping 85%, 87% and 89% answered “yes” to the following:

11. “Do you want the Republican Party to ensure our candidates for office are for gun rights?”

12. “Do you want the Republican Party to ensure our candidates for office are for lower taxes?”

13. “Do you want the Republican Party to ensure our candidates for office are pro-life?”

Ballot questions like these are non-binding surveys but are used by local and state parties to guage what Republican voters (who never attend party meetings or events) actually think about the issues. Ballot questions are valuable because the results help guide the party, and inform Republican politicians what their constituents want and believe.

“I don’t pay too much attention to local politics, unfortunately, and that’s why I really appreciate the local GOP keeping these people accountable and ensuring that only true Republicans are actually on the ballot,” said Joseph Cochran, a GenX Catoosa voter.

While the Establishment and leftist media suggest that Catoosa GOP’s volunteer leadership team is a radical fringe group who are out of touch with everyday Republican voters, and that primary voters want to do their own personal vetting of all candidates’ ideology, this data proves that three out of four Republican voters in Catoosa county actually want the Republican Party to vet candidates before they are allowed on the Republican ballot.

“What I noticed from reading the answers to the ballot questions,” said GRA Chairman & attorney Alex Johnson, “is that over 76% of Catoosa County Republican voters don’t want anyone who wants to, to be able to run on the Republican Primary ballot, and over 84% of them want the party to ensure candidates are for lower taxes, gun rights, and Prolife.”

They want someone from the party ensuring a candidate meets a minimum standard. They don’t think their selection in the voting booth on primary Election Day is where the Democrats should get eliminated. They want that to occur earlier. They want to walk into the voting booth on primary Election Day and feel confident that they are choosing between two or more people who hold at least a base-level adherence to core Republican ideology.

You might say, they want the Republican party to pre-qualify the options as being “non-Democrat” before that candidate’s name ever appears on the ballot as an option. Lucky for Catoosa voters, this process already exists and it is called “candidate qualification.” This is the process by which the Republican Party serves Republican voters by eliminating rotten apples before dishing up the options to the voters. They file the paperwork with the county and the names of whichever candidates they “qualified” as Republicans.

But this process has been circumvented by the Catoosa Board of Elections and the question continues to be litigated in court.

Does a county party have a right to turn down a candidate? The 11th Circuit court said “yes” because the constitution protects the right to freedom of association.

Catoosa GOP has received significant criticism of their efforts to block specific county commission candidates from the primary ballot when those candidates had a history of supporting anti-Republican policy. For two years the argument was that any person has a right to run and have their name appear on the Republican primary ballot, no matter what they believe, no matter what kind of public record they have, as long as they pay the qualifying fee, and sign their name on the loyalty oath to the party. But in an appalling act of government coercion this year, the Catoosa Board of Elections didn’t even allow the Catoosa GOP to disqualify someone who failed to sign the loyalty oath!

The bottom line is that tests, interviews, and auditions only frighten away weak performers … or fakes. Real Republicans who believe in limited government, low taxes, family values, the right to bear arms, etc., are not scared to sit down and talk about what they believe and are not daunted by a pass or fail examination of their record on public policy. Differences of opinion and approach to public policy exist within the party, and are not disqualifiers, so long as those differences remain within the parameters of base-level Republicanism.

The political class counts on low turnout. Don’t give them what they want.

Does the Republican Party exist to serve politicians and get them elected? Or does it exist to serve the people?

The Republican Party exists to enact its principled and conservative platform, which serves the people. The paid political industry/Establishment want the party to be weak and to not serve the public. All actions should be taken toward the goal of getting the platform enacted.

The political industry has one favorite voter: the voter who stays home.

They love the exhausted voter.
They love the confused voter.
They love the voter who says, “I’ll get to it next time.”

Because when regular people stop voting, the paid political industry: consultants, lobbyists, bureaucrats, PACs, and career politicians, they do not stop working or getting paid. They just get a smaller group of people to decide more power for everyone else.

That is why the message is simple:

Go vote. Bring someone with you. Vote like the Democrats and Republican establishment are counting on you to forget.

Georgia’s May 19, 2026 Primary is not a boring election. It includes major statewide races, congressional races, and statewide judicial races. 

And yes: please vote in the judicial races.

Normally, I am rightly skeptical of incumbents. Incumbency is the political class’s favorite shield. But the statewide judicial races are different this election cycle. In these races, the statewide judicial incumbents have done the far better job and need to be supported. 

As an attorney, I can attest that bad appellate judges can cause a lot of harm.

The statewide judicial seats up this cycle include Georgia Supreme Court seats held by Sarah Hawkins Warren and Charlie Bethel, along with Court of Appeals seats held by Trenton Brown and Elizabeth Gobeil.

Do not skip those races. Do not leave them blank. The election for them is happening now and ends on Tuesday. Judicial races matter because courts decide whether written law means what it says, and whether constitutional rights are protected.

Then, for Republicans who want to send a clear message in the partisan races, support the GRA-endorsed candidates. The Georgia Republican Assembly’s 2026 endorsement list includes the following statewide and congressional endorsements and was decided by actual volunteer activists who are more immune to the effects of candidates trying to buy the election with millions of dollars of ads. …

Click here to read more of Alex’s article on his Substack.

This week the attorney for Harvey Wysong and Brandyn James filed an appeal to overturn the decision of the Fulton Judge who denied the Writ of Mandamus to block Raffensperger from the Republican Primary ballot.

The appeal was filed immediately after the Fulton Judge Belinda Edwards finally produced a written opinion justifying her decision. The opinion she filed was virtually a cut-and-paste of text submitted by Raffensperger’s lawyers. But it took her over a week to approve it.

You can read the appellate brief, filed by attorney Jacob Medoff here.

The hearing, which was held on Friday, April 24th, was broadcast on a Zoom Call, with many watching, but the Judge forbade anyone from recording the hearing. Garland Favorito with VoterGA said that he was working to acquire a transcript of the hearing. The judge listened to both sides present their arguments at the hearing, but then denied the writ without providing any explanation for her decision. She asked counsel for Harvey and Brandyn why the GA GOP was not a party to the hearing, but at this point the GA GOP does not have the power to remove Raffensperger from the primary ballot, which is the remedy that Harvey and Brandyn are seeking.

“This legal action is about protecting the interests of all Georgia voters,” said attorney Medoff. “When my fellow Georgians and I go to the polls, we deserve to know whether that ‘R’ or ‘D’ next to our chosen candidate’s name means something or not. If Raffensperger is allowed to run as a Republican against the wishes of the majority of the party, the party designation is meaningless.”

In the brief, Medoff addressed the nub of the issue:

“In June of 2025, the Georgia Republican Party (the ‘GRP’) convened to hold the Georgia Republican Party 2025 State Convention. During the convention, the delegates of the GRP voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution to deny Brad Raffensperger from qualifying as a candidate in any future Republican primary in the State of Georgia. (Ex. B, p. 12). Under the GRP rules, the resolution was binding. (Ex. B, p. 4).”

Now the controversy will be taken up before the nine-judge panel of the Georgia State Supreme Court. One of the Justices has hinted at his view on the U.S. Constitution’s 1st Amendment “right to freedom of association” and its relationship with Georgia statutory code in a case related to the Catoosa GOP’s effort to block RINO incumbent commissioners from prequalifying, but so far the court as a whole has not weighed in on the merits of the constitutional issue. However, the federal 11th Circuit Court last summer made it unequivocally clear in their decision that the state law cannot “burden” the federally-protected right of “freedom of association” that political parties have as private entities.

Harvey and Brandyn have bravely taken the initiative to try and preserve the integrity of the GOP, but they can’t do it alone. They need the support of their fellow delegates. They need you.

If every delegate who voted to block Brad Raffensperger could pitch in just $10 it would likely cover all of the legal expenses needed. Can you make a small donation today?

This case, even if decided after the primary, could have massive implications for whether or not undercover Democrats will be allowed to deceive voters in the future, and whether the GAGOP will be run with integrity.

You can support Harvey and Brandyn’s efforts to litigate this issue at a GiveSendGO they have setup online at https://www.givesendgo.com/stopRaffy.

Harvey and Brandyn posted: “The Republican Party’s ‘freedom of association’ rights were violated. Our rights were violated. This injustice needs to stop so the Republican Party can be successful. You can participate with us in this fight by making a donation of any amount. Thank you for any support you can provide!”