No, Georgia’s Governor cannot ‘overrule’ its secretary of state on voting

President Donald Trump on Monday morning inaccurately described Georgia’s vote-counting process and implausibly urged the state’s Republican governor to “overrule” its Republican secretary of state.

"Why won’t Governor @BrianKempGA, the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes," Trump tweeted. "It will be a “goldmine” of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state...."

The tweet was the latest of Trump’s continuing assault on election results in Georgia and its top Republican officials, which has ignited an intraparty feud in the state.

Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia does not have the authority to do what Trump is suggesting. Moreover, signature verification is already part of the vote-counting process.

When absentee ballots are received, Georgia’s election officials verify the signature on the envelopes. The ballots and envelopes are then separated to protect privacy, so rechecking the envelopes during a recount would be meaningless.

“Georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. The secretary of state, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order,” a spokesperson for Kemp told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The notion that “the governor has inherent executive authority to suspend or investigate or somehow interfere with this process — that’s just not true,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University. “There is no plausible case here whatsoever.”

Unlike the federal government, Georgia does not have a unitary executive, and its governor and secretary of state have separate duties. Even the governor’s emergency powers are limited.

Kreis said that Georgia’s code was “very clear” on the kinds of things a governor can do in a state of emergency. Kemp can move resources and funds and enact temporary measures, Kreis said, but “he does not have the authority to expressly interfere with elections.”

Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, continued to push back on Trump’s and his allies’ baseless claims of mass voter fraud in a news conference Monday.

“The truth matters, especially around election administration,” Raffensperger said. “There are those who exploit the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation, and frankly, they’re misleading the president as well, apparently.”