Barry Fleming
The Co-Chair of Brian Kemp’s SAFE Commission and a Republican State Representative. As a state representative, he guided a controversial voter ID law through the lower chamber in 2006, authored the 2017 exact match bill and sponsored a bill to reduce Early Voting days from 16 to 6 during the 2013-2014 Session. Fleming also defended Hancock County against an NAACP lawsuit alleging “improper and racially based challenges and purges of black registered voters.”
Brian Strickland
A member of Kemp’s SAFE commission and a State Senator. His district was targeted by the U.S. Justice Department in a lawsuit alleging that redistricting by Republican lawmakers was done to “dilute African-American voting strength and keep…Strickland in office.” During his deposition, Strickland admitted he was not familiar with the provisions of the Voting Rights Act and had not read it. He also stated one of his goals with redistricting was for more Republicans to be drawn into his district and that he believed splitting a precinct to remove Democratic voters was appropriate.
[Case 1:17-cv-01427-TCB-MLB-BBM Document 127; Filed 02/26/18; Pages 185-187] [Case 1:17-cv-01427-TCB-MLB-BBM Document 127; Filed 02/26/18; Pages 188-189] [Gwinnett Daily Post, Curt Yeomans, “Brian Kemp: ‘I’m ready to fight’ redistricting lawsuit filed by former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder’s group,” 10/4/2017]
Candice Broce
Former Press Secretary for Secretary of State Brian Kemp and current Communications Director and Deputy Executive Counsel for the Governor’s office. While publicly supporting Kemp’s campaign for governor on social media and at campaign events, Broce maintained her official role as a public employee in the Secretary of State’s office. After attending a Kemp campaign event in July 2018, Broce was still employed by the Secretary of State’s office and responded to open records requests in her official capacity as Press Secretary and Staff Attorney. As a public employee, Broce publicized campaign events and posted her support for Kemp’s campaign for governor on social media from the same social media account she used as an official employee of the Secretary of State’s office. The Secretary of State’s office is supposed to ensure free and fair elections so that every Georgian’s vote is counted. But during the 2018 gubernatorial election, Candice Broce blurred the lines between her efforts to elect Brian Kemp and her taxpayer funded position as a public employee in the Secretary of State’s office, adding a possible ethics issue to an election tainted by reports of voter suppression and widespread irregularities.
McCarthy Group Private Equity
Election Systems & Software (ES&S) is the largest voting machine company in the country, controlling about 60% of the market. As a private company, there is limited oversight over ES&S and its owner the McCarthy Group, a private equity firm. Between 1990 to 1995, former Senator Chuck Hagel was the chairman of American Information Systems (which then became ES&S) and profited from the voting machine industry. Before announcing his candidacy for Senate, Hagel stepped down from his post but continued to receive payments from the McCarthy Group. Hagel’s public financial disclosure forms as of 2014, list the McCarthy Group, LLC as an asset and his position as senior advisor to McCarthy Capital (company the McCarthy Group is a part of) between 2009 to 2013. According to SEC filings, the McCarthy Group is affiliated with several other investment firms including Fulcrum Growth Partners, LLC, Lateef LLC, and Bridges Investment. As private entities, there is little information available on their investors or investments. The information available does show a significant Republican donor presence within firm leadership. Edson Bridges, the CEO of Bridges and Co-Chairman of McCarthy is a consistent Republican donor. Between 2017-2018 alone he contributed more than $10,000 on the federal level to Republican candidates and the Republican National Committee. McCarthy Group board members and management have also contributed and supported Republican candidates, including board director Kenneth Stinson, founder Mike McCarthy, and President and Managing Partner Patrick Duffy.
David Dove
Current Executive counsel for Governor Brian Kemp and former Chief of Staff & Legal Counsel to former Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Dove accepted Las Vegas Trips from ES&S in March 2017 while his office was In the market for new voter machines. “It’s highly inappropriate for any election official to be accepting anything of value from a primary contractor,” Virginia Canter, the chief ethics officer at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told McClatchy: “It shocks the conscience.”
Charles Harper
Brian Kemp’s current Deputy Chief of Staff and former Legislative Director, was a Lobbyist for ES&S as recently as June 2018. “In 2012, Charles Harper, a sod farmer who had been elected to the Georgia House of Representative a decade earlier, became a registered lobbyist in the office of the Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, where he served as legislative director. At the end of 2017, as Kemp was ramping up his campaign for governor, Harper did not renew his lobbying credentials with the secretary of state. Instead, he registered to lobby for ES&S. After Kemp won the governor’s race in November, he named Harper – whose contract with ES&S ended in June 2018 – to his transition team.
John Bozeman
A Kemp donor, and the Head of Legislative Affairs for Former Governor Sonny Perdue. Bozeman has been a registered lobbyist with ES&S Since 2017. “At the end of 2017, as Kemp was ramping up his campaign for governor, Harper did not renew his lobbying credentials with the Secretary of State. Instead, he registered to lobby for ES&S.” On August 9, 2018,, Bozeman contributed $6,600 to Kemp’s gubernatorial campaign. Unlike his many other contributions, Bozeman did not provide his employment information or his more commonly used address.
John S. Martin III
A registered lobbyist for ES&S since 2017 and donated $250 to Brad Raffensperger’s Secretary of State runoff campaign. Notably, Martin did not provide his employment information and his contribution details are listed as “info requested.”
Kathy Rogers
Georgia’s Former State Elections Director who opposed paper ballot records. Rogers is now an ES&S Lobbyist and ES&S’s Senior Vice President for Government Affairs. Kathy Rogers, E.S. & S.’s senior vice-president for governmental affairs, told McClatchy that there was nothing untoward about the advisory board, which she said has been “immensely valuable in providing customer feedback.” In 2006, a bill requiring a verifiable paper record of each ballot, introduced in the Georgia legislature at the urging of election-integrity advocates, failed after the state’s elections director, Kathy Rogers, opposed it. Rogers later went to work for E.S. & S. Election-integrity advocates sued in response, challenging the legality of the State’s voting equipment.
Karen Handel
Georgia’s former Secretary of State. Handel received $25,000 in contributions from voting machine lobbying firm. In the three years that the case wended its way through the courts, where it was eventually dismissed by the Georgia Supreme Court, the new secretary of state, Karen Handel, was found to have received $25,000 in campaign contributions from employees and family members associated with Massey and Bowers’ lobbying firm.”