Kandiss Taylor from our SEGRA chapter interviewed GRA & NFRA President Alex Johnson in the most recent episode of her show this last weekend. We think you’ll find it a fascinating story about how the grassroots have been transforming the Republican Party in Georgia over the last several years. Watch the video on Rumble here:
We were excited last year to help GRA-member Kandiss Taylor win election as the new 1st Congressional District GA GOP Chairwoman, and we were also happy to help Brittany Brown (our SEGRA President) win election as the new Chatham County GOP Chairwoman. These two ladies and their teams have greatly improved the Republican Party in the southeastern corner of the state, after two years of chaos for the region, and Kandiss’ skills as a hostess were on bright display as state committee members, elected officials, and other esteemed guests arrived for this special event:
GRA President Nathaniel Darnell, GRA member Jackie Harling (Walker County GOP Chairwoman), & GRA member Ron Hooper (Banks County)Our NFRA Director Abigail Darnell with husband Nathaniel & baby daughter Blessing SophiaThe M.C.s for the Gala: GRA member Kandiss Taylor (1st District Chair) & Cooper Jacks
GRA-endorsed State Senator Colton Moore (R-Dade) once again led the auction Friday evening for the 1st District’s fundraising gala, which grossed $50,000. At least $15,000 was raised to help the alternate electors being harassed by Fulton D.A. Fani Willis.
GRA member Denise Burns (14th District Chair) with GRA 1st Vice President Brant Frost VSouth GRA member Holly Kessler with Cooper JacksGRA President Nathaniel Darnell with south GRA member Kevin ParkerState Senator Colton Moore taking with Coastal RA President Jeff Jones (former State Representative)GRA member Joy Turner (1st District Treasurer) with NFRA Director Abigail Darnell
Saturday, April 22nd, delegates reported major GRA wins in the Georgia Republican Congressional District Conventions all across the state!
The longest and perhaps hardest fought victories came in the 11th Congressional District, which concluded near 7:30pm. Going into that convention, many were still concerned that the Establishment would attempt to throw out the Cherokee County delegation, but they were successfully seated. By 4pm a secret ballot election count found that GRA-endorsed candidate David Oles(Pickens) had defeated incumbent Dr. Lisa Adkins (Cobb) for the 11th District GOP Chairman’s race by a vote of 164 to 88. GRA-endorsed candidate James Dvorak(Cherokee) also defeated Roy Adkins (Cobb) for Vice Chair of Communications in the 11th by a vote of 163 to 88. GRA-endorsed candidate Chris Mora (Pickens) won the 11th’s 1st Vice Chair position without opposition, and he presided over the remainder of that convention.
Several other GRA-endorsed candidates and GRA members were elected to the 11th District GOP Committee and the GA GOP State Committee from the 11th, including Marcia Cox (Cherokee), Carolyn Childers (Pickens), Cassandra Docherty(Cherokee), Susan Haddad (Cherokee), and Dr. Fun Fong (Cobb).
At the 14th District GOP Convention, in spite of a late smear campaign targeted against him, our GRA NFRA Director Nathaniel Darnell (Cobb) was elected as Treasurer when his opponent dropped out of the race. He was also re-elected to the GA GOP State Committee by acclamation. In that District our GRA Assistant Secretary Denise Burns (Catoosa) also easily won re-election as the 14th’s District GOP Chairwoman, and several GRA members were elected from the 14th to the GA GOP State Committee, including Jackie Harling(Walker) and our GRA Secretary Joanna Hildreth (Catoosa).
In the 6th District, another candidate who endured a series of smear campaigns was GRA-endorsed Richard Jordan (Cherokee), who successfully won election as the 1st Vice Chairman by a vote of 156 to 68.
GRA member Donna Watson (C0bb) won election as the 6th District Chairwoman. GRA-endorsed candidate Honey Burfield (Cherokee) was elected to the GA GOP State Committee from the 6th. A majority of the elected 6th District Executive Committee members were also GRA-endorsed candidates.
In the 13th District, GRA-member Nathan Adams (Cobb) won re-election as the 1st Vice Chairman in that Republican organization, and Cobb RA Executive Committee officer Matthew Hardwick won election to the GA GOP State Committee!
In the 4th District, GRA President Alex Johnson (DeKalb) and the GRA’s junior NFRA Director Catherine Bernard (DeKalb) were also elected to the GA GOP State Committee. GRA-endorsed candidate Jim Duffie (DeKalb) was elected as the 4th District GOP Chairman. That district was the earliest to report adjourning, being out by 11:30am Saturday morning.
In the 3rd Congressional District, former State Senator and GRA member Mike Crane(Coweta) was easily re-elected as 3rd District GOP Chairman. GRA 2nd Vice President Jim Fernander (Douglas) and West GRA chapter leader Katie Frost (Coweta) also easily won election to the GA GOP State Committee, along with many other terrific GRA members in the 3rd District.
But perhaps the biggest surprise upset came from the 1st Congressional District where, former candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor, Kandiss Taylor(Appling) won election as the new District Chairwoman with the help of our SEGRA chapter. The uber-liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution (via Greg Bluestein) begrudgingly acknowledged these victories Sunday morning, devoting 24 paragraphs to try and spin how “irrelevant” they are with quotes from cronies of the Atlanta political industry. Kandiss Taylor provided a response on her Facebook social media page, which you can watch here. For the third time in three years, attorney Jason Shepherd (Cobb) spitefully declared in the article that he was leaving the Republican Party. Jason has made it his regular practice to publicly malign, slander, and harass conservatives in the GOP ever since he lost a race for GA GOP Chairman to David Shafer (Gwinnett) two years ago.
These state-wide victories showcase the deep hunger the grassroots in the Republican Party have for a change toward accountability to Republican principles and policies (as described in our GOP platform). The people sense a massive disconnect between the Republican Establishment in Atlanta at the State Capitol and the folks back home.
Now we prepare for the state GA GOP Convention in Columbus, GA in early June. You can equip yourself for that event by joining us for the GRA state Endorsement Convention this coming Saturday in Smyrna, Georgia! You will have the opportunity to hear from numerous candidates, and if you are a GRA member, you will have the opportunity to vote to endorse the candidates. (Remember it takes a 2/3rd majority vote of the participating membership to earn an endorsement from the GRA.)
GRA State Endorsement Convention Saturday, April 29, 2023 | Starting at 10:00am American Legion – Smyrna Post 160 | 160 Legion Drive SE Smyrna, GA 30080 Online Registration: $40 Lunch included!
Atlanta, GA — An estimated over 300 election integrity activists from every corner of the state showed up at the State Board of Elections Meeting and a Press Conference (organized by Georgians for Truth) Tuesday at the State Capitol, filling up three rooms! Many of us from the GRA were pleased to be among them. With so many items on the agenda, the meeting progressed into a second day.
Chairman JohnFervier (appointed by Governor Brian Kemp) displayed what appeared to be hostility to the election integrity activists by throwing a curve ball in changing the process for how people could sit in the main room. In the past, access to the main room has been based upon first-come-first-served, but the Chairman imposed a new system whereby attendees had to receive tickets to get a seat, and priority was given to members of the press and state legislature in order to have access to the main room. Several who arrived early to get a seat were told they had to move to an overflow room because they did not have a ticket.
Jason Frazier
The GRA’s Election Integrity Action Group Chairman Jason Frazier observed about the meeting: “I would be surprised if Fervier makes it to the end of his term. Pressure is building. Meetings went from quarterly to 3-4 days/month. He is no longer the alpha in the room. Hundreds of people are showing up, thousands more watching. He has lost control of the meeting. People that know him and his family say that he wasn’t like this, etc.” He described Fervier’s actions as “Waffle House,” a play on Fervier’s career as an Executive at the company.
GRA-member & 1st District Chairwoman Kandiss Taylor summarized the situation on the State Elections Board well when she wrote on X that it “has [three] ethical, moral, election responsible members. They have a liberal [D]emocrat as well as a Kemp appointed Chairman that both are fighting the Georgians who just want truth and accountability.”
So far both Republican Party appointed Dr. Janice Johnston and GA State House appointed Janelle King have been the most reliable leaders of election integrity reforms on the SEB, although even they mused aloud that some of the rule proposals presented this week crossed the line, in their minds, from rule-making into possible legislating, in particular one that would have substituted Dominion computer voting for paper ballots under particular circumstances. State Senate appointed member Rick Jeffres is increasingly voting with Johnston and King in favor of rule reforms. Democrat appointed member Sara Tindell Ghazal and Kemp appointee Chairman Fervier are more often finding themselves voting together in the minority.
GRA-member and Cobb GOP Chairwoman Salleigh Grubbs pointed out the problem of the SEB not having their own legal counsel, but being strapped to the counsel of the Secretary of State. “How many times are y’all going to allow a data breach form the Secretary of State’s office before you do something about it?” she asked.
GRA-member Matt Rowenczak testifies at the SEBMeeting Tuesday.
Eyebrows were raised when a lawyer from Washington, D.C. was brought in Tuesday to testify against the need for certain election integrity reforms. Dr. Johnston asked who invited him to speak for 30 minutes in front of the Board, and Chairman Fervier replied somewhat testily that that was his decision.
The Georgia SEB received national attention this week for voting to pass a rule that would require “a reasonable inquiry” before certifying an election where there were signs of possible fraud or miscalculation. Detractors of the rule argued that the rule provision was ambiguous and could keep election results tied up in court for months.
Former President Donald Trump praised the development. “I won Alabama by a record,” he said of the 2020 election. “I won South Carolina by a record. You don’t win Alabama and South Carolina by records and lose Georgia. It doesn’t happen. All we want is honest elections. If we have honest elections in Georgia, if we have honest elections in Pennsylvania, we’re gonna win ’em by a lot.”
Update: In a 3-2 vote Wednesday, election board members Rick Jeffares, Janice Johnston and Janelle King voted to report findings from the Fulton County investigation of double balloting, missing ballot images and a host of other violations tied to the controversial 2020 presidential election to the Attorney General. The vote Wednesday referred the Fulton case to Attorney General Chris Carr‘s office for investigation into 17,852 reported missing ballot images, the double-counting of more than 3,000 ballot vote images, and other election-related violations.
Remember that Trump only allegedly lost Georgia in the presidential race of 2020 by about 12,000 votes. If there were double votes on some of those, that would reduce the number to about 9,000 votes. If there are over 17,000 ballot images missing that were in favor of Trump in that election, then he would have rightfully won that presidential election — contrary to what has been reported.
Above are images of the three full rooms with attendees at the State Board of Elections Meeting Tuesday.
Newnan, GA — Saturday, GRA members from as far as Catoosa County in the northwest corner to Chatham County in the southeast corner of the state gathered to vote on approving resolutions, adopting bylaw-changes, and electing new officers to serve on the GRA’s state Executive Committee. They also got to hear from an array of inspiring guest speakers.
Alex Johnson presiding over the convention.
The body voted in favor of a bylaw change that created a new officer position on the Board and Executive Committee: Chairman of the Board. Attorney Alex Johnson, who has served as the GRA President for about a decade, was elected to this new position, freeing him up to give more time and attention to his elected position as the NFRA President while still providing counsel and oversight of the GRA and still presiding over official meetings and conventions.
Nathaniel Darnell from Cobb County was elected as the new GRA President, which the amended bylaws specify would operate more like a C.E.O. or Executive Director for the organization. Nathaniel has served as the NFRA Director for the last four years. Prior to that, he served as the 3rd Vice President. His wife Abigail Darnell was elected to replace him in his NFRA Director position.
Anne Lane from DeKalb was elected as the new Assistant Secretary, and Stephen Alligood was elected as the new 3rd Vice President, after Mrs. Darnell’s promotion.
The other elected officers on the GRA Executive Committee will be unchanged. Brant Frost V of Coweta will continue to serve as the 1st Vice President, attorney Catherine Bernard of DeKalb as the now Senior NFRA Director for the GRA, Jim Fernander of Douglasville as the 2nd Vice President, Joanna Hildreth of Catoosa as the Secretary, and Banks Wise of Cherokee as the Treasurer.
The new GRA Executive Committee: Brant Frost, Jim Fernander, Alex Johnson, Nathaniel Darnell, Stephen Alligood, Joanna Hildreth, Catherine Bernard, Abigail Darnell, and Anne Lane. (Treasurer Banks Wise is absent from the photo.)
Alex Johnson bestowing the award for exceptional service upon Denise Burns.
The convention also honored Walker County’s Denise Burns, who for the last term has done double-duty, serving as the GRA’s Assistant Secretary while also being the elected 14th District GA GOP Chairwoman. She decided to not run for another term on the GRA Executive Committee, given her many other duties, but the GRA praised her for her exceptional service over the last few years of growth within the organization.
The newly elected officers were joined at the convention by most of the other members of the GRA Board (pictured at top), including the local chapter Presidents and Action Group Chairmen.
Brittany Brown of SEGRA
One of the local chapter Presidents who spoke at the convention was Brittany Brown of the SEGRA chapter, who was also elected this year as the Chatham County GOP Chairwoman. She and Fulton County GOP Chairwoman Stephanie Endres gave a presentation on how their county GOPs were stolen by the RINO Establishment two years ago only to be re-claimed this year during convention season. Now these promise to be strategic high-population counties that could have a significant impact on the up-coming 2024 elections.
Kandiss Taylor
Kandiss Taylor (1st District GA GOP Chair) served as the Resolutions Committee Chairwoman at the GRA Convention Saturday. The body adopted resolutions supporting medical freedom, election integrity, the Accountability Rule, and RICO reform, while “censuring” the Republican legislators who voted for the Mental Health Parity bill, H.B. 520 last year. Kandiss encouraged the activists to reserve ammunition for the RINOs and Democrats rather than firing on each other.
Garrett Ziegler
One of the keynote speakers at the convention was Garrett Ziegler, founder of Marco Polo — an opposition research group. Mr. Ziegler served as the Associate Director of Trade & Manufacturing Policy under former President Donald Trump. He spoke at length especially about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
In addition, attendees got to hear the latest report from Georgia Freedom Caucus leaders Mallory Staples, State Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Cherokee), and State Senator Colton Moore (R-Dade). Moore and Byrd concluded the special legislative session with the rest of the Georgia General Assembly last Thursday, and now are preparing for the regular legislative session starting in January 2024. We honored Charlice and Colton with special awards for their courageous statesmanship:
GA Freedom Caucus LeadershipColton & Charlice receiving the awards
