Sec. Kemp Submits Resignation to Gov. Deal
From a press release from Secretary of State’s office:
On the morning of November 8, 2018, Secretary of State Brian Kemp tendered his resignation – effective at 11:59 AM – to Governor Nathan Deal.
“We deeply appreciate Brian Kemp’s public service as Secretary of State. We will continue our work in this office on behalf of all Georgians. We are excited to welcome Robyn A. Crittenden to the agency to serve as our Secretary of State,” stated Lorri Smith, Assistant Deputy Secretary of State and Chief Operating Officer.
EDIT – Details added about Sec. Kemp’s replacement:
Gov. Nathan Deal today appointed former Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS) Commissioner Robyn A. Crittenden to serve as secretary of state, filling the vacancy created by the resignation of Gov.-elect Brian Kemp. Crittenden took the oath of office this afternoon and will serve the remainder of Kemp’s term.
“Robyn’s experience as an attorney, public servant and agency head make her exceptionally qualified to fill the role of Georgia’s secretary of state,” said Deal. “She is a leader with brilliant intellect, high integrity, and a wide range of experience in public service. Robyn has been one of the most effective leaders within my administration and she is well-qualified to fill one of the most important jobs in state government. I appreciate her willingness to fill this role and I thank Gov.-elect Kemp for his leadership as secretary of state.”
Crittenden is the first African-American woman to serve as a statewide constitutional officer in Georgia history. In 2015, Deal appointed Crittenden to be DHS commissioner after she served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Georgia Student Finance Commission. Following Crittenden’s swearing-in ceremony today, Deal nominated Gerlda B. Hines, chief of staff and chief financial officer of DHS, to be the interim DHS commissioner, pending board approval.
About Author
lawtonsack
Lawton is a graduate of Georgia Southern University (the GSU) with a degree in Information Technology. He has held numerous positions within the Georgia Republican Party throughout the years.
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If he did this last week, many a problem would have been resolved or not even created.
Nothing would have changed. Each county is responsible for it’s own elections and tabulation and certification of those elections. They process absentee and provisional ballots for their own county. The data is uploaded to the Secretary of State’s office for compiling. I wish more people would go observe how the process actually works in their county.
Come on Lawton. You’re talking about the nuts and bolts of running elections, which clearly isn’t the reason Kemp’s actions have people disturbed. He set himself up as adversary, put himself in the middle of losing lawsuits, and ginned up an 11th hour non-scandal against dems, all the while secure in the fact that if push came to shove SoS Kemp could handle candidate Kemp’s problems. He should have stepped down when he announced or at least publicly recused himself from any election issue but he valued the security of being SoS more than he worried about the perception of conflict of interest.
Yeah, that worked very well for Karen Handel. She is still called a quitter today because she stepped down as SOS in December, 2009 for the 2010 Governor’s race.
159 election superintendents/board of elections get thrown under the bus when blanket statements get thrown out like this.
By all means, let’s not act ethically in government for fear of being called names. (Also, who is actually calling her a quitter?)
He blurred the lines between his office and his campaign, as has been documented here several times. Most egregiously, he used his office to launch an “investigation” into his political opponents. He should have either resigned or recused himself from all election related matters and maintained a bright line between his campaign and the office of the SOS. Because that would have been the right thing to do, regardless of what people say about it.
If this is how things work, then Kemp resigning would have taken a campaign issue away from Abrams. He probably would have won by a comfortable margin.
You don’t think the new drum beat would have been “oh look, now he’s doing from the outside. That’s just a place holder, he’s the one actually pulling the strings…” The agenda of an illegitimate election started about 18 months ago and is currently culminating in a candidate and her staff that can’t do math.
I’m not saying this based on the process, but perception. If he was out of the SOS office, anything that happened or didn’t happen could not be laid at his feet as being the SOS. It created a lot of unneeded drama, unneeded questioning, and gave others the chance to make things even more annoying.
The data is uploaded to the Secretary of State’s office for compiling.
Ah. Hence the problem.
But, the damage was mostly done during the registration processing anyway.
Well, guess who processes registrations – the counties.
Also, compiles the data submitted by the county – They don’t create the data, they just compile and report it. The counties certify.
Cathy Cox did this for her Governor’s race as well. Kemp did it for his re-election campaign 4 years ago.
Others disagree:
“Lawsuit filed after 53,000 voter registration applications ‘pending’ in Kemp’s office”
“Judge rules against Brian Kemp over Georgia voting restrictions days before gubernatorial election”
Cathy Cox at least recused herself from the election process. I don’t think Kemp ever even did that.
They handle the legal end of it and when they are rejected by the county. The counties enter in data, do verification checks, etc. for registrations.
C’mon Lawton. There have been numerous stories about the SoS offices’ involvement in purging voters, (recommending) closing precincts, leaving data vulnerable… The SoS’ office is intimately involved with registrations and counting votes.
“Georgia’s secretary of state Brian Kemp doxes thousands of absentee voters”
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/07/georgia-secretary-of-state-brian-kemp-doxes-thousands-absentee-voters/
March 3, 2017 — The FBI opens an investigation after it appears as many as 7.5 million Georgia voter records may have been compromised for the second time in as many years
Nov. 4, 2018 — an alleged attempt to hack the state’s voter registration system.
https://politics.myajc.com/news/state–regional-govt–politics/voter-security-timeline-for-georgia/GvIRrFomg3iSNsvjus8TgM/
He should have resigned. Maybe the worst is “Kemp, two days before the governor’s election in which he’s the Republican candidate, launches an investigation into the Democratic Party of Georgia”. OK fine, but a public announcement? Really?
And BTW, I have been there at night counting ballots. In a cold dark warehouse, all night.
Who processes the registrations from the online registration app?
Is there another source on the internet that says that? I am trying to google this, but not having any luck.
Here is one article – “Once the polls close, around 7 p.m., elections officials lock up the voting machines—essentially bulky laptops—and cart them and the voter cards to a “check-in center,” which will then send the election data to the respective county’s elections preparation center, where the votes are counted and tabulated.”
I just spent almost 6 hours at the Bulloch County Annex on Tuesday doing absentee ballots and watching the same process I have seen repeated over the last 10 years. I will be back there tomorrow afternoon to do provisional ballots. I will see if they have any resources that I can share with you.
Mighty white of him.
Is it just a coincidence the SOS corporations division site went dead concurrently with this resignation announcement?
I appreciate Kemp’s leadership with this resignation. Shows what kind of governor he’ll be!
Alright… DTM is headed back to moderation… what was posted has nothing to do with anything in this article…
That was probably my fault for asking him to post his ideas on the AG. If that’s the case give me the probation and not him. Moderate me.
Here is a blog post based on this story. If you don’t like the text, you can look at the pictures. https://chamblee54.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/we-were-lied-to/
LOL! You dug up so many old pictures that I couldn’t keep my mind on the text!
It’s improper, especially for a SOS, to declare victory when there are known votes to be counted. Have respect for the system and shut up until the votes are counted.