Eight candidates vying to be Georgia’s next top elections official faced off during a series of debates Tuesday, with candidates across the political spectrum seeking to cast themselves as defenders of free, fair and transparent elections in Georgia.
The secretary of state’s office is responsible for overseeing elections, regulating corporate filings and managing professional licenses. Georgia’s current secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, is currently running for governor, leaving the seat open.
Browse 2026 Elections: Candidate lists, news
Stories on projects, policy, legislation
Early voting for the state primary election began Monday. Election day is set for May 19, and the winners of the primaries will go on to face each other in the November general election.
The debates were hosted by the Atlanta Press Club and taped at Georgia Public Broadcasting’s studios in midtown Atlanta. Full recordings of both the Republican and Democratic debates can be viewed on the Atlanta Press Club’s YouTube channel.
Republican candidates rehash 2020 election, push for paper ballots
Four candidates — Vernon Jones, Kelvin King, Ted Metz and Gabriel Sterling — appeared at the Republican primary debate in a wide-ranging discussion that centered on ballot QR codes, securities regulation and licensing reform. A fifth candidate, Covington Rep. Tim Fleming, declined an invitation to participate and was represented by an empty podium.
The candidates were largely in agreement about the need to modernize the state’s licensing system and improve oversight of the securities division. But on the subject of election administration, many of the candidates seemed more intent on rehashing concerns about the validity of the 2020 election than on moving forward. Former President Joe Biden narrowly won Georgia in 2020, making him the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so in three decades.
Jones, a former Democratic state representative turned Trump supporter who has cast doubts on the 2020 election results, argued that a switch to paper ballots was needed for the upcoming midterm elections.
“I stand with those who believe that there was election fraud,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I was the first and the only one on this panel that stood with the first ‘Stop the Steal’ rally all the way up to Washington D.C.”
King, a contractor and Air Force veteran, defended his decision to run for secretary of state even as his wife, Janelle King, sits on the State Election Board.
“I’m thankful that my wife is serving on this board, and every Georgia citizen can now hear the truth about what’s going on in our elections,” he said. “I’m not getting anything that the public won’t have, so no, there’s no conflict of interest at all.”
Metz, a Navy veteran, retired business executive and conservative elections activist who has previously run for office as a Libertarian, went as far as to say that in 2020, “there was really no election that occurred because of the violations of federal election law to begin with.”
Sterling, who spent seven years working in the secretary of state’s office, was the sole candidate to defend Georgia’s 2020 election results. He also highlighted his work drafting a controversial election law in 2021 and defending the law against legal challenges.
“I’m the only person on this stage ready to defend our overall voting system and keep it safe and secure for every Georgian to know the outcome is correct,” Sterling said.
Georgia’s 2020 election results were confirmed three times, including one recount that was done by hand. A state-led investigation and multiple lawsuits also failed to turn up evidence of widespread fraud.
Raffensperger, who presided over the 2020 election, fought off a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2022.
But Tuesday’s debate also took a personal turn. Two candidates broke into an argument towards the end of the panel, with Jones repeatedly asking King whether he was getting paid through no-bid state contracts.
Within a few hours of the debate wrapping up, Sterling had already released a campaign ad with footage from the debate. The ad featured a portion of King and Jones’ argument while Sterling looked over at them with his arms crossed, grinning.
Democrats largely aligned on voting equipment, business reforms
On the Democratic side of the ticket, four contenders grappled with the best way to ensure that elections are secure and transparent while also remaining accessible for voters.
The candidates, Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett, Judge Penny Brown Reynolds and voting advocates Cam Ashling and Adrian Consonery Jr., were united on ensuring that future elections in Georgia are conducted in a transparent and auditable manner, though each candidate argued they were the most qualified choice for Democratic voters.
But the ghost of Georgia’s 2020 election also made its way into the Democratic secretary of state debate, with Barrett highlighting the importance of protecting Georgia’s elections against federal interference. She called the FBI’s January raid of the Fulton County election hub “a sham,” and warned that the move “was aimed at setting us up for a [federal] takeover of our elections.”
But unlike the Republicans, who largely called for a switch to hand-marked paper ballots, many of the Democratic candidates proposed a hybrid system that would involve machine counting of ballots with paper receipts that can be used to verify election results, similar to how Georgia’s current voting equipment works. The process for selecting new election equipment will likely begin next year, though lawmakers adjourned from the 2026 session without approving a bill that would have allowed county election workers to start procuring new voting equipment after Feb. 1, 2027.
The candidates also floated some creative proposals for changing Georgia’s election system. Ashling, who served as AAPI constituency director for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff’s Senate campaigns, suggested increasing language access at the ballot to engage minority voters.
The four Democrats were also largely in agreement that systems like Georgia’s licensing process and securities oversight could use improvements, pledging to speed up the process of applying for or renewing a professional license, and to increase the number of investigators in the securities division.
But as with the Republican candidates, some of the participants also threw barbs at their fellow candidates, with Barrett questioning Brown Reynolds for resigning from the State Court of Fulton County in 2008 and leaving former Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, to appoint her replacement.
“If we have a Republican governor and the secretary of state leaves office early, that governor will appoint the replacement,” Barrett said. “That is too dangerous in this moment.”
Brown Reynolds fired back, calling Barrett’s claims “political hyperbole.”
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
