has become a real target of ire of state republicans, rick baron. i want to just give the argument here, the sort of the argument that actually fulton county, independent of the big lie and these accusations of fraud which are ridiculous has had problems managing elections and there are real issues there that folks are unhappy with. so i live in fulton county. i ve voted in fulton county for the past, oh, a lot of years, chris. but i live in this county and i ve had my fear of challenges. but there are 159 counties in georgia and there s a reason that the republicans are only investigating one county. out of all of the other counties that had problems on election day, no other county is being investigated and at risk of being taken over by a republican power grab. and so it s only fulton county. they re afraid to say what we all know is true outloud and that is too many people that look like me showed up to vote in fulton county.
closures to the actual counting of the votes. joining me now, congresswoman nakeema williams. she s also the chair of the georgia democratic party. congresswoman, first maybe just a little bit of level setting here on what the situation is. there s a county board of elections and there is someone who has the job of managing those elections that the county board appoints, rick baron, is that right? the county board of electioning is comprised of democrats and republicans appointed by each county democratic party and republican party and then you have staff that actually run the election system, which are hired and come out of the fulton county board of commissioners budget. so it s an independent body that is running the election. these are career bureaucrats. these are people who have signed up to protect elections, to administer elections across the board. and so one of those people
baseless allegations that black urban counties are up to no good. now in georgia they re taking that racist mythology an operationalizing it with a new law. it allows the republican-controlled state board of elections, which by the way they kicked the secretary of state out of, to take over local elections operations and appoint its own managers to oversee voting there following an audit or investigation. this week they took the first step to do just that. they wrote a letter demanding a performance review of the person who oversees elections in fulton county, a man named rick baron. if this review comes back and does not satisfy their needs, republicans can initiate proceedings to seize control of elections in fulton county. if republicans are successful in fulton county, they will be able to rip control away from local government. then they can send in their own hand-picked appointees to see everything from polling place