Coastal Georgia Republican officials are urging a member of the state party’s executive committee, a prominent 2020 election denier, to step down from his post.
Late last month, a state administrative judge ruled that conservative talk show host Brian Pritchard had broken state election laws by voting nine times while serving probation for a felony check forgery sentence.
In a posting on Facebook last week, Kandiss Taylor, chair of the 1st District Republican Committee, lambasted Pritchard for failing to relinquish his seat as first vice chair of the state GOP. She said the man who described himself as a “champion of election integrity” was a distraction from the state GOP’s main priority: getting Donald Trump elected in November.
“He spends his days ‘exposing’ what he believes to be corruption but refuses to be held to the same standard he has erected,” Taylor wrote.
Taylor, a former gubernatorial candidate from Baxley, was immediately joined in her calls for Pritchard’s resignation or removal by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“He’s a convicted felon who committed voter fraud and can NOT continue to be allowed to represent the Georgia GOP!” the Rome Republican congresswoman wrote on X.
Pritchard, who told a gathering of Chatham County Republicans last spring that “2020 was rigged” and has accused Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr of being “complicit” in what he has insisted was a stolen election, isn’t going quietly.
Hours after Taylor and Greene urged Pritchard to step down, the host of “BKP on Politics” on the Voice of Rural America network, refused state GOP chairman Josh McKoon’s demand for his resignation during a meeting of the executive committee.
Pritchard’s wife added to the online spat with support for her husband. She launched vitriolic attacks on Taylor and Greene “Why would the communist left and the RINOs have so much fear? Does his work expose too many?” she asked on X.
Pritchard himself doubled down a day later: “Today, I had two conversations that reaffirmed my resolve. One with God, and the other with my beloved wife. And from those conversations, I’ve drawn one resounding conclusion: if they want me out, if my commitment to exposing their corruption threatens them so deeply, then they should buckle up. Because I’m just getting started.”
Following last week’s executive committee meeting, the state GOP formally notified Pritchard that he must resign from the executive committee by early next month. He was elected to the post at last summer’s state Republican convention in Columbus.
The chair of Chatham County Republican Party said she supported the state party’s move. Brittany Brown said Monday that if Pritchard cared about the Republican Party, he would step down.
“It’s not about him. It’s about the reputation of the party and making sure that we’re doing the right thing, even when it’s hard,” Brown said.
“We can’t shout election integrity from the rooftops and then have someone that sits on the board that was just found guilty of the same thing.”
Jordan Giben, chair of the Bryan County Republican Party, said Monday he and the county GOP were deferring to the state GOP’s wishes on the matter.
The head of the Glynn County Republican Party, Patrick Duncan, didn’t return a phone call and a text message seeking comment.
But Carolyn Hall Fisher, a resident of Glynn County who held the office first vice chair on the state GOP executive committee during the tenure of chairman David Shafer, described as “outrageous” Pritchard’s illegal voting and his response to calls for his resignation.
“He is an embarrassment to the party, and he needs to go,” Fisher said.
The Tide brings news and observation from The Current’s staff.
