Hello, I'm Karen Greer, news anchor at WSB TV in Atlanta.

Welcome to the Atlanta Press Club Loudermilk-Young Debate Series from the studios of Georgia Public Broadcasting.

The 2026 debate series was made possible by grants to the Atlanta Press Club from the Arthur Blank Family Foundation and the Robert Charles Loudermilk Senior Foundation.

This is the debate for Republican candidates running for Georgia.

Secretary of State.

We have two journalists who will question the candidates today.

Kate Brumback is an Atlanta based reporter for The Associated Press.

And Caleb Groves is a politics reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

I'm going to kick off today's debate, asking each of the candidates to introduce themselves and tell viewers why they should be Georgia's next secretary of state.

The candidates will have 60s to introduce themselves.

We will go in alphabetical order.

Tim Fleming declined to participate and is represented by this empty podium.

So we will begin with Vernon Jones.

Hello Georgia.

I'm Vernon Jones, and I want to be your Secretary of State.

Based on my experience as a past chief executive who managed a large number of people employees in terms of number of employees and the budget, multibillion dollar budget, as well as having a legislative background, understanding the General Assembly, how things work there, being a small business person and at the same time working in corporate America, I have unique experience and background that I can come in as the Secretary of State and address the many issues, one dealing with elections, making sure that our elections are free, fair and transparent, and at the same time, make sure that we do go back to those paper ballots and that every vote is counted and counted accurately.

And certainly, we want to make sure that all of those problems that you are professional license are experiencing, trying to get your license, those license, the red tape, the gridlock is removed so you can actually get in and have an opportunity to get your license and get on board and make money.

Government should not come between you and your paycheck.

So I look forward to serving you and answering questions later.

All right, Kelvin King, you have 1 minute.

Let's keep the Georgians.

Down in South Georgia and Brantley and Echols County and Clinch County.

And our prayers from the devastating fire.

But I'm Kelvin King, I'm running to be your next secretary of state.

I'm Georgia, born and raised in Macon, Georgia.

Raised in Mableton.

I'm an Air Force Academy graduate, air Force veteran, former contracting officer.

I started my company from scratch.

I'm a licensed general contractor here.

13 years that I've been building, and I have over 30 employees.

I have a real construction company, and that's what's required to be a leader of our Secretary of State's office.

Currently, elections are the number one concern across our state.

Half of our voters think that they're fair.

Half of our voters think that they're fraudulent.

I have a solution to bring both sides together.

Also, business licensing.

I hold a general contractor's license, and we have to make sure that that office is efficient.

And our seniors.

We've got to make sure we protect our seniors.

Vote for me on May 19, and I will make sure that all of those items are checked off.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Ted Metz, 60s.

I'm an Air Force brat, a life scout, a Navy vet, a college grad, an entrepreneur, a computer guru, a community servant, and a grandfather.

I've been a government automation contractor, a satellite telecom guru.

I've held a Finra series six, 7-63 license, been a financial planner and a.com programmer.

I've turned small companies into large companies through continuous rapid improvements in process procedure, policy, personnel training, and computerization.

I've been a CEO, a COO, a CFO for corporations and nonprofits.

I've held business and professional licenses in Georgia for over the past 50 years.

Since 2012, I've testified at committee hearings, boards of elections, and the state election Board.

I've lobbied legislators, sent notices and petitions to the legislative and executive branches and all 5,059 counties regarding elections.

I filed six election cases in the state and federal court all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court.

I'm retired.

I'm not looking for a job or stepping stone to the higher office.

I simply want to apply my skills to fixing the chaos at the Secretary of State's office, caused by years of incompetence and unlawful acts.

And Gabriel Sterling.

I'm Gabriel Sterling, I'm a lifelong conservative, a native Georgian.

I've been fighting for conservative victories in this state for 40 years of my life.

I helped to turn it red over these decades, and I've been Secretary of State's office the last seven years.

I had to leave to run for this office.

The main thing we have to realize moving forward is our opponents, the Democrats.

And I'm the only person on this stage who has worked to actually pass election integrity laws.

In 2021, I helped to author SB 202, the Election Integrity Act, our office and our team implemented it.

Then I was the one sitting in court defending it.

I was the one when Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden, Justice Department and the entire woke world came after Georgia.

I was the one in the gap defending you in election integrity.

Now we have a system that is viewed across America as one of the best.

Fox news says we're the best.

Heritage Foundation says we have the highest security in 2024, 90% of conservatives trust the outcome.

We've already reached that point.

I want to defend it and keep us the best voting state in America.

All right.

Thank you all so much for the full set of debate rules, please visit Atlanta Press Club.org.

We're going to now go to the panel, starting with Caleb Groves, who will ask a question for everyone to answer.

And once again, you have 60s for your response.

So the first question I'm going to ask is, President Donald Trump has continued to claim the 2020 election was rigged against him, despite no evidence supporting that.

So do you believe the 2020 election was stolen?

Why or why not?

I believe there were many, many irregularities.

I believe violations had taken place.

I also believe that our Secretary of State's office should not probably be taking taping phone calls and let our information, bit by bit.

That was not accurate.

I stand with those who believe that there was election fraud.

As a matter of fact, I was the first and the only one on this panel that stood with the first very Stop the Steal rally all the way up to Washington, D.C., even by local county governments, the election boards, their lawyers there are even saying that they they registered people who were not U.S.

Citizens.

They are actually saying that they did not sign off properly with the chain of command.

They're admitting the problem.

So for them to say there is no no, there was no fraud.

As a matter of fact, the results were or the the comments were there was no widespread fraud.

Well, people want to know how wide was the wide.

They didn't say there was no fraud.

They said there was no widespread fraud.

So that tells me we had issues with our elections.

And I stand for free, fair and transparent election.

That's why I want to come back to paper ballots.

That's why I want to make sure that those who are responsible are held accountable, and those who know they violate election laws, that they will have consequences.

Gabriel Sterling, you're next with this question.

Well, we have to look at is it President Trump wants us to have free, fair, honest elections.

We looked at issues that came out of 2020 and there were genuine issues.

Fulton County was a mess.

Fulton County is always a mess, but we were the first people to ever hold them accountable and put monitors in place to try to take care of that issue, working in hand in hand with the s e, b. What we did in 2021 is we wrote the Election Integrity Act, SB 202 with the legislature, and I was proud when Governor Kemp signed that bill.

And in 2022, we saw record turnout.

In 2024, we saw record turnout.

And just yesterday, we saw the beginning of record turnout here in Georgia in 2026, because the voters trust the outcomes of these elections.

Now we have the best and safest elections in America.

Fox News says it Heritage Foundation says we're the most secure.

And that's what President Trump wants to see is free, fair, honest elections that are appropriate and correctly counted for the voters because their voices need to be heard.

Ted Metz, your response to this question, please.

After analyzing the data and the outcomes from the 2020 election, it is clear to anyone that has a brain that there are significant systemic irregularities in the election from not only the vote count, but the procedural and administrative functions.

There are so many botched things.

This is why Tina Peters is actually behind bars is because our election systems are hackable.

They are infiltrated.

The databases are manipulatable.

It's just amazing that 350 000 votes from Fulton County were recently finally admitted that they were not properly certified.

In fact, no election has been properly certified since 2020, and the implementation of the Dominion system, the poll tapes that came out of those machines said that we, the undersigned, certify the election under the election, the Local Elections Authorities Act, which is a Canadian law.

We fixed that through our lawsuits.

Kelvin King, can you respond, please?

Yes, I think 2020 is still in question.

To be frank with you, the things that I've learned studying our election are studying.

Our elections have been just startling.

The bottom line is this we haven't had a clean election over the last several elections in 2022.

Michelle Long Spears had a bad election where the QR code didn't reflect the the ballot in 2024 in the city of Oakwood in Hall County, there were 300 people that received and voted for the wrong election and the.

The delta between number one and number two was 88 votes.

And we still don't know who won that election.

What we know is that our current process does not follow our law.

Every voter must be able to verify their ballot on paper with their eyes.

Currently, we can't do that because our vote is carried through a QR code, and no human can read a QR code.

So under my administration, we're going to implement Hand-marked paper ballots.

We're going to have election night results because we will do machine tabulation, but certification will not occur until every count, every ballot has been counted by hand.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Our panel will now ask a question to an individual candidate.

We're going to begin with Kate Brumback asking a question just one to Kelvin King.

Once again, you have 60s for your response.

Mr.

King, your wife is currently a member of the State Election Board, which hears complaints about possible violations of state election law.

She has been very vocal from this position.

She's been a very vocal critic of the Secretary of State's office.

She's also been with you on the campaign trail.

What do you say to people who think that this might be a conflict of interest?

Yeah, I'll say the people that this is not a conflict of interest.

We've checked with attorneys.

I'm a candidate just like the other candidates.

They all can go to the state election board meetings.

In fact, I encourage every candidate to do that because you're going to learn a lot.

What I learned is that there's illegals voting in our election.

I mean, there was someone from the Bahamas that voted 23 times before she was caught, voted three more times after she was caught.

This is happening right now.

And unfortunately, our Secretary of State's office had been sitting on a lot of these irregularity cases.

There were over 300 cases that were backlogged.

And the state elections board, which my wife does, chair, and she's doing a great job.

They found these backlogged cases and worked them out.

That's the only reason why we know about illegal voting, double voting, voting outside your precinct.

This is a problem.

And I'm actually glad and 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.

I'm not getting anything that's that the public won't have.

So no, there's no conflict of interest at all.

There may be a conflict of interest with our Secretary.

Of.

State being the governor.

Running for.

I'm going to stop you really quickly because I see Gabriel Sterling wants to respond since he is the current Secretary of state.

Your response to these allegations?

Not quite the current, but we're on the way.

Sorry, it's not current.

The reality of this is state election boards adjudicates cases that the Secretary's office brings.

Ours was the first office that ever did a citizenship check in this state and in this nation.

We've done two of them now, and we were the ones who discovered these using new and more modern tools and going through jury lists.

That has never been done previously.

We were the ones who found all these, and nearly all of them occurred before the 2016.

We went to real ID, we've moved in our office to having every person have citizenship, check that real ID, and that's what I want to make sure we continue to do, moving into the future and stop the Democrats from taking it away.

All right, Caleb Groves, please ask a question for Ted Metz.

Mr.

Metz, you've advocated for hand counting ballots instead of putting them through scanner to tabulate votes.

Size have shown that to be more error prone and more time consuming.

Could you explain to me why you support such a counting method?

Because it is the law.

If you look up the official code of Georgia title 212437, it is the law on how to hand count and certify elections using paper ballots.

Also, there's the two United States code nine, which specifies that all elections for representatives shall be on paper ballots or by lever machine.

The Georgia state law still specifies a machine as a lever machine.

Computers were never authorized under law, and the myth that paper ballot, election counting is error prone is only a manufactured propaganda point made by the left wingers to try to keep the machines in place.

Because the left knows that they can manipulate the votes through the databases.

After the election, paper ballots hand counted in public are the safest, most efficient, quickest way to do it.

Go to my website.

I'll show you the demonstration.

Kate, it's your turn to ask a question to Vernon Jones.

Mr.

Jones, you are elected DeKalb County CEO and a state representative.

As a Democrat, you also ran for sheriff and you ran for U.S.

House as a Republican after giving up a campaign for governor.

Why should Republican primary voters have confidence that you're the best candidate for secretary of state?

First of all, I've always been a conservative.

I was a conservative Democrat.

I didn't leave the Democrat Party.

The Democratic Party left me.

I just don't do not believe that a man can have a baby.

I do not believe that our borders should be invaded.

I do not believe that men should take over female sports.

Those are my core beliefs.

Those are my conservative values.

I've always been fiscally conservative.

I've always balanced the budget, never raised taxes.

As a matter of fact, I've been a lot more conservative than a lot of Republicans.

And so I'm not I'm not worried about whether I change parties or not.

The fact of it is, the Democrat Party does not represent my conservative values anymore.

They just don't.

It doesn't mean I can't work with them.

It doesn't mean we can't address issues.

Because right now the critical issue is what's going on with this election, especially the upcoming elections.

And so I want to make sure that that the Secretary of State and regardless of your party, your affiliation, we're going to make sure, if you're trying to get your business license through the Secretary of State's office, there's not going to be gridlock if you're trying to vote.

We want to make sure your vote is free, fair, and transparent, and you go back to paper ballots like you would like to.

All right.

Gabriel Sterling's next question is coming from Caleb.

Mr.

Sterling, you oversaw the implementation of the state's current voting system.

It has been identified.

There are vulnerabilities with the system that have been patched by the state, and many critics have concerns over the QR codes that are counted as the official vote.

Given all that in mind, do you still have confidence in the state's current system, and is there anything that you would change about it?

I do have confidence in the current system as it is implemented now.

We have made improvements on security every single year.

The patches you're talking about, we would love to be able to do, but the legislature never funded it.

What the real vulnerability is in the long term is if a Democrat takes over this office, because what they want to do is they want to come in, they want to get rid of voter ID, they want to get rid of our list maintenance, and they essentially want to let noncitizens and illegal aliens get onto the rolls.

And that is the real security problem we're going to have in the long run, which is why you need to elect me, because I'm the only person who took on Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden, Justice Department, and the woke world when they tried to sue us to do these exact same things.

I can only go by what they have done.

Every Democrat in the legislature has voted twice to leave the loophole in the Georgia Constitution to allow non-citizens to vote, and every lawsuit we've had has been to get rid of voter ID, to get rid of list maintenance, and to get rid of our citizenship verification.

I can only go by the things the Democrats have done in the past and in the future.

I'm the only person on the stage ready to defend our overall voting system and keep it safe and secure for every Georgia to know the outcome is correct.

And that concludes our first round of questions.

The candidates will now ask a question to an opponent of their choice.

You'll have 30s to ask that question, 60s to respond.

And the person who asked the question will get a 32nd rebuttal.

Vernon Jones you get the first question for one of your opponents?

Yes.

This question is Mr.

King.

And to the moderators, first question about the conflict of interest.

You said on the board at the state, your wife sits on the board at the state.

You and your wife work for the same company.

You have a multi-million dollar contract that you've had going back to 2016.

You just renew that contract again going to 2026.

So do you are you going to tell the people right now how many millions of dollars you made of taxpayers dollars?

And are you going to terminate the contract before this election?

Oh, no, no, not at all.

Clearly you don't know what you're talking about.

I'm a licensed general contractor.

I do public sector work.

I bid on every single job I have.

I'm actually pretty good at it.

I was a contracting officer in Air Force, so my background is extensive when it comes to government procurement, government use of funds, and in fact, contracting officers are the only authorized representatives of the federal government that can spend your tax dollars.

So I'm trained to do that.

Unfortunately.

I wish you had that type of information.

And you were trained because when you were a CEO of DeKalb County, you bloated the budget.

You spent extensively on security.

You were indicted or, excuse me, investigated for, um, uh, I guess giving jobs to black employees over white employees.

That's discrimination.

And the county had to pay $2.5 million for that.

That type of mindset is not needed in the Secretary of State's office.

This office is about professionalism.

It's about an executive.

It's about integrity, not about a character.

But it does require a leader of character.

And that's what I'll bring to the Secretary of State's office.

Thank you.

And, Mr.

Jones, you get a 32nd.

Rebuttal again.

Mr.

King, you did not answer the question.

You do, in fact, have a contract with the state of Georgia.

You've been making millions of dollars.

Your wife had a conflict.

They were your wife was still on the board.

And as taxpayers had to pay $50,000 because she was using her private email, I was never convicted or charged with anything like you said.

So that's just fake information.

And my security police department handles the security.

I don't handle security.

And in addition to that, I've never raised taxes.

And I got our county to a dual AAA credit rating, which has never happened in his life.

So.

All right, we're going to move ahead.

Gabriel Sterling, please ask a question to one of your opponents.

Well, my plan was to ask Mr.

Fleming something, but he hasn't joined us in any of our joint appearances.

So I'm going to ask Mr.

Metz.

Um, you talked several times in our joint appearances about how proud you are that you've sued the state of Georgia, which has cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You supported the lawsuit, whose biggest single funder trying to get rid of the voting system we have was Stacey Abrams.

Fair Fight.

You've run as a libertarian against Republicans, hurting our chances of winning elections.

And we know that the Democrats win this office.

It will be chaos, and they will get rid of all of the great security we have.

Get rid of voter ID, get rid of the list maintenance, let noncitizens on.

I'm going to ask you this.

Do you understand the danger of the Democrats winning this office?

And how do you plan to win since you've helped them so much in the past?

I love your narrative.

It's beautiful running as a libertarian.

Obviously, Ronald Reagan said that the heart of republicanism is libertarianism.

I've always run to change the dialog, and it's worked.

The curling versus Raffensperger most important parts of me being there was to hear Judge Amy Totenberg, have a holding.

That said, our current election system violated two points of Georgia law, yet you were the one that helped to implement the system that was already judged illegal before implementation.

So I don't see your point in saying that.

I'm just going to cause the Democrats to to, to win.

That's kind of crazy.

If you vote for me, I can assure you that since I know the law and the lawsuits that I have filed have to do with enforcing the public law on elections, which are not being held under law in Georgia right now.

Your rebuttal, Mr.. Sterling.

Look, in 2021, our office worked with Governor Kemp and the legislature.

We passed SB 202, the Election Integrity Act, and when the Democrats came and they are going to come again, because we have, I think, 16 active lawsuits right now.

They want to get rid of voter ID, they want to get rid of list maintenance, and they want to allow non-citizens to get on the rolls.

These are the actions they have taken.

I'm the only candidate in this race who has been in the courtroom, worked the legal strategies, worked with the attorney general's office and the governor's office to defend the Election Integrity Act and make sure that we have the strongest, safest elections in America.

All right, Kelvin King, who would you like to ask a question?

Sure.

My question is for Gabriel Sterling.

I believe transparency is the best disinfectant.

Um, now you walked away with a $200, $200,000, no bid contract that effectively doubled your salary on taxpayers dime.

Um, would you commit today to ending no bid contracts for state insiders, or do you believe that bypassing the competitive bidding process is an acceptable way to spend public funds?

When you were the implementation implementation manager of Dominion Systems?

Mr.

King, I appreciate the question because this has been something that's been asked and answered several times over the years.

This was a contract that was done under the emergency Procurement following Georgia's Procurement Act.

It was looked at by the inspector general that said everything was okay, because the main thing we were trying to do was get this in place for the election in March, we passed the law in, I think, March 1 year, and we have it ready for March.

And we went to several different contractors to look for it.

Nobody wanted to take it.

And the ones that did say would cost $1000000-5 million.

When I implemented it, I saved Georgia taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

We implemented it in time, and it was it was effective in the November election in June.

There were some problems in the primary in Fulton County only.

And that wasn't a problem with the machines.

That was a problem of Fulton County training and hiring.

I have saved taxpayers millions of dollars, and I'm the only person in this race who can take that knowledge and use it to defend our systems and defend our Election Integrity Act and beat back the Democrats, because what they want to do is they want to get rid of the voter ID, they want to get rid of the maintenance and noncitizens on the rolls.

And the only person who can stop that.

So, so you think it was a good way to spend tax dollars to have a no bid contract that you got directly, and then you came back to work for the Secretary of State's office?

Well, the reality was that my salary was about the same because I had to pay all the taxes, all the health care and everything.

We did it to make it the exact same salary.

Kelvin.

So the answer is what.

I said.

We had an emergency procurement.

There was no time.

We went to people to try to bid and they wouldn't do it.

And I would say to millions because once you said they would, so they do it for four or 5 million.

And then the ones who wouldn't said, it's too dangerous.

Okay, we'll let taxpayers make that determination.

All right.

We're going to move on.

Ted Metz, you may ask a question to one of your opponents.

Do you have one?

No.

Had one.

Since we're all ganging up on Gabe Sterling on the morning of of of the 2020 election, your boss Brad went on NBC and said that there is 4.7 million Georgians that voted, and only 2% of the votes were left to count.

County would finish that day and would not affect the results of Trump winning.

Instead, counting continued for days, and nearly 5 million votes ended up being certified.

Where did the extra 200,000 votes come from?

Well, you're just kind of misquoting what was taken at the time.

At the morning, what we thought was going on.

The reality was that 2% isn't the number of votes, because we didn't know the number of votes.

You cannot know the number of votes until everything is brought in and you go through reconciliation.

And the reality is, the law requires that we have buckets of votes that have to wait until the final Friday after that Tuesday.

And guess what?

It was a close election.

Georgia is a purple state, and that is the danger we're facing right now.

It is a purple state.

We have to have somebody who can run for this office and win and make sure we stop the Democrats from doing all the things they want to do to take away our security.

Well, all I can say is, after the analysis of all the databases and all of the elections, 200,000 votes were unsourced and and still, we know the 315,000 votes were not properly certified in Fulton County.

You've been responsible for this stuff.

So I don't understand if you'll allow the corruption to continue with these voting machines or if you'll actually implement the federal law and the state law on paper ballot elections so that Georgians can actually have confidence in elections again and get rid of the machines.

All right.

We are going to now move on to the you are watching the Republican primary debate for Georgia Secretary of State.

We will now go back to the panel, who will ask questions to the candidate of their choice until we run out of time.

Caleb Groves, let's begin with you.

So this question is for each candidate.

Um state law says the QR codes on ballots can no longer be used as the official vote.

After starting in July this year, how should the state comply with this law for the November general election this year?

And how should the state address this statutory conflict for a long term solution?

And let's begin.

Kelvin King.

I mean, I love that question.

Thanks, because we are hurtling towards a calamity right now.

July 1 is when we're not supposed to use QR codes on our ballots anymore.

And unfortunately, our legislature, which there's a missing guy that was on the legislature and our Secretary of State's office, neither one of them did anything.

This is why we're in the position that we're in now.

They knew for two years, two years, that the QR code needed to be removed under King administration.

First of all, I would not have allowed it to go two years without making a move.

I would have made a move right when the state legislature asked us to remove QR codes.

But in this particular situation, we've got to implement Hand-marked paper ballots under emergency procedures.

Right now in November, I expect there to be a Hand-marked paper ballot that's distributed to the counties and that voters go in and they select on their own without an expensive ballot marking device.

And they cast their vote based on their intent.

That is the only way right now to operate under the code of Georgia and have a legal election.

All right.

Our next question, Kate Brumback.

Actually, we're doing the questions for all the candidates.

For everyone.

I'm sorry.

Who's next?

You go.

Okay.

Well, Mr.

King is incorrect on the law.

The law says that every vote must be cast on a ballot marking device.

He's also wrong on the facts.

Our office told them how much it would cost.

We've told them every single year we put in a budget request for it every year.

In fact, the governor put in money to get rid of the QR codes because he felt the obligation, since he signed the bill to get rid of QR codes.

The problem we're running into now is the legislature couldn't decide amongst themselves.

And having this ambiguity leaves a wide opening for the Democrats to take us to court again and try to put in their favored policy outcomes, which is to get rid of voter ID, get rid of voter list maintenance, and allow noncitizens on the rolls.

And also Stacey Abrams favorite, which is to go to hand-marked paper ballots, every single lawsuit she's ever filed has been to take us to hand-marked paper ballots.

They are insecure.

They are.

They're a lot less secure because it requires no skill to overvote a ballot.

That's just the case.

And the reality of this is we can we have a very elegant way to do it using the optical character recognition for all the ballots, and we can count all of them before certification.

It costs no more money.

And the secretary has told them how to do this.

To Metz.

QR codes on the ballots have never been legal under Georgia law, because the Georgia law specifies ballot construction and exactly how the ballot is supposed to look to the voter and includes the information on each ballot that is required to be there.

The paper receipt we get out of the ballot marking device is not an official ballot to begin with.

Also, the Vsg, as well as the EAC, said that if there is going to be a QR code, it has to be such that any commercial QR code reader could decipher it.

We have a proprietary software.

No one knows what's in the QR code.

It should never have been there.

And again, under two U.S.C.

Nine as well as 212, 321, two, three, 34-21 two, four, 37 paper ballots are really up to the counties.

The counties are in charge of elections and administration, not the Secretary of State's office.

Vernon Jones the question for you.

Yes, obviously, it's the law was passed in 2020 four.

The legislature did take action, although it's not enforceable.

You can't implement it the way that they wrote the law.

So what do you have?

The secretary of state is not doing anything, providing the leadership.

The legislature didn't do anything.

Having served in the legislature.

I understand how that worked.

That's why experience counts here.

I would file a court, a mandamus requiring the legislature or either the executive branch, which the Secretary of State's office and those local offices carry out the law, and that is going to the what we call the emergency ballot procedures.

They can do it that way.

And if any counties do not have the money to pay for the ballots or to pay for the printers for that particular situation, then they should be giving block grants from the Secretary of State's office so they can carry it out.

Right now, the various counties are saying we can't do it.

Some are saying we can.

Some are saying we can.

The best way to enforce it is because if we go through with this and we do not get rid of the QR codes come in November or some do it and some don't, then you can have both sides filing lawsuits saying that we held elections that were unconstitutional, that were illegal.

And so I believe in going to court and litigating this.

I'd like to ask the hands.

I'd like to bring in a quick question then, just before I go to you, Kate.

So what would be the first thing you would change day one if you are elected Secretary of state?

I've heard a couple of things, but let's begin.

Tim Metz with you.

First and foremost, we're going to follow the law in Pearson versus Kemp, which is a lawsuit, obviously, against Governor Kemp, the secretary of state's legal counsel, admitted that the secretary of state has absolutely no authority to tell the counties how to run their elections.

So, as Secretary of State day one, I will return the administration, the Authority of administration of elections, as well as voter registrations to the county where legally resides, and get the Secretary of State's Central Planning Office away from it, only to provide oversight to make sure that the counties are doing it right.

We have become a tyrannical, top down government.

We the people are the government.

We the people need to show up at our board of election meetings and all of our committee hearings and actually voice our concerns that we need to be a constitutional republic again, not a central planning communist state.

Vernon Jones to you?

First of all, I would require an audit.

Secondly, I would meet with every staff person, find out what they do, how they're doing it.

Thirdly, I would implement a plan for those who are in gridlocks and bottlenecks are trying to get their license, their professional license.

I would guarantee them, if you don't get your license within 30 days, that we will give you a temporary license, because the problem is on our end and not their end.

And at the same time, I would act within the law, meaning I would not bring in and define a precinct as a drop box, for example, and drop boxes were brought in.

They were not defined as law in the state statute.

The legislature only legislature can declare or determine what a precinct is.

And that was illegal.

Mailing out all those ballots to everybody who was a registered voter was illegal.

So make sure we stay within the law and make sure that any legislative changes that need to be made, I do it with the legislature in concert with them.

And the main thing is to provide good leadership, make sure that we run the most efficient, most effective operation that we've ever had, and work with both sides of the aisle to make sure that elections are free, fair, and transparent.

Because public trust has to be restored back in our elections.

Right now, people do not have faith in our elections on both sides.

So we want to make sure that we have good employees that are properly trained.

We work with the various election offices across the state, and we provide good, solid leadership and again, providing free, fair and transparent elections.

Gabriel Sterling.

Well, the first thing I would do is I would go to the legislature and make sure that they are going to work with us, because right now, a lot of the stuff that we have done in the secretary's office, we've done voluntarily and shown leadership, all this maintenance we've done.

We have amended, canceled or corrected 4.4 million voter records in a state where we have 7.4 million active voters, because 11% of Americans move every single year.

We I would also require the citizenship verification, the audits that we have done voluntarily to be done because one of the worst things that can happen is if a Democrat gets into this office or they sue us appropriately, and somebody who overreaches opens the door for them, they can get rid of voter ID, they can get rid of list maintenance and get rid of citizenship checks.

I'm the only person who sat in court and won.

Defending Georgia's election integrity from Stacey Abrams.

You know, the coalition for the People's Agenda, who sued us directly on citizenship.

And I have won every time in court, and I will do it every time in the future.

Kelvin King to you.

All right.

The first thing I'll do is I'll have to change the whole mindset of the Secretary of State's office, and I'm going to do that by implementing new core values of integrity.

First service before self and excellence in all we do.

That is what the staff is looking for is leadership.

And that's what's been lacking over the last eight years is leadership.

I will next next, I will make sure that the counties understand that.

I know that the Secretary of State's office not only is going to support them, but it's also going to hold them accountable to to make sure that they follow the rules that's established by the secretary of State, the county and the state Elections board.

And I will also partner with the state elections Board to make sure that they get everything they need, that they can stand on their own two feet, that they can provide the proper checks and balances over the Secretary of State's office.

That's what you start with first, as a leader of an organization.

Then I will implement the changes that I that I mentioned earlier, um, taking office in January.

I will make sure that we are utilizing hammock paper ballots, that we are making sure that our voter rolls are clean by removing ourselves from the system and signing intergovernmental agreements with other secretaries of states, around the, around the, around the country.

Those are areas that will reestablish trust in our elections.

And that will happen under King administration.

Kate Brumback, please ask your question.

This is a question for all candidates.

The U.S.

Department of Justice has sought access to unredacted state voter rolls.

Would you comply with those requests?

Why or why not?

I would comply with them, obviously, because if your house is clean, what do you have to hide?

I don't have a problem with that.

I think many times the federal government is called in to investigate and to review.

It doesn't mean that you've done something wrong, but I like to work with the federal government.

I like to work in accordance with the law.

I would certainly seek legislative, I should say, attorney counsel to make sure that I am complying.

But I don't have a problem with that.

I want to run a clean operation.

I want it to be free, fair and transparent.

I want to be held accountable in that office.

And the office should be held accountable.

So I would work with with the state and the federal government in terms of them wanting to review that office and its functions.

Calvin King.

Yeah, I believe in federalism.

I think Georgia and every state has their own independent abilities and rights.

However, when Georgia abuses those rights, it is time for the federal government to step in.

For instance, in Fulton County, Fulton County election results were are in question to this very day.

There's 315,000 questionable votes from Fulton County.

Because.

Not because.

Because the county did something wrong.

It's because there were unsigned tabulator tapes.

And that is a break in chain of chain of custody.

So essentially, the state elections board had to step in and and subpoena records from Fulton County.

That didn't happen.

They didn't comply.

So, you know, the state elections board reached out to the DOJ.

And as we all know, what happened in January, the DOJ came down to seize those ballots.

So that's a very extreme circumstance.

But like I said, if the states aren't complying, then it requires the federal government to get involved.

Gabriel Sterling.

The office has complied as much as we legally can under both state and federal law on this.

But the reality is we have the cleanest list in America because of the outstanding level of list maintenance we've done, because of the partnerships with Eric, we have removed 4.4 million records or corrected or amended them in our state because there was a backlog.

We've invested in this.

And one of the best things that we've had to do is fight these lawsuits from the left, the coalition of People's agenda, Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden's Justice Department I was the one in the courtroom fighting these things over and over again.

And I've been on the record.

I'm opposed to any federal takeover of elections, regardless of party, because under the Constitution, it is a state function.

Now, Congress can pass specific laws, and one specific law would like for them to pass is to amend the National Voter Registration Act, so we can do even more list maintenance and we can show the world yet again, that we have the cleanest, best lists in America.

Because right now, even if we know someone doesn't live there, federal law doesn't let us remove them.

It doesn't make any common sense in every year, our office has gone to Congress to ask them to change the law.

Ted Metz.

I'm sort of on the fence about this because I really don't know the constitutionality of of how the federal federal government would would actually use or utilize the lists.

On the one hand, I think it's a great idea in order for us to know across state lines, who else is on registered to vote in other states, we do not have the cleanest voter rolls in the world, as some people claim they are dirty.

They are dirty not only because of the nvra, which obviously we could use our federal ability to nullify the law and not comply, but also because of Eric and the and the and the system that we've had in the past, which has allowed third parties access to insert or remove voter ghost voters from from the voter list.

If you look, even in the last election cycle, there was about 200,000 voters that were in that were put in all in 1,900.

And then a couple of days after the election, they were removed.

We need more security in our voter rolls and voter registration.

Gabriel Sterling, would you like a rebuttal on this?

Well, the problem is there's so many things to rebut because so many things that are just technically incorrect.

The reality is, Eric, is one of the reasons we have such clean voter rolls.

We also have all of the above approach.

We've done the things that Kevin is talking about, 1-1 agreements with other states.

We work on it constantly.

It happens every single day.

The voter list is always changing, and we've done tons of data cleanup and set new processes with the counties to make sure that we don't have those issues.

And if you leave, Eric, you're taking away the only tool that will stop double voting.

And we've handed over 48 different people who double voted to county prosecutors.

Forsythe has done their job and sent one to prison.

All right, Caleb, we'll go with you for another question for our panel.

Touching back on something that King mentioned earlier, um, the FBI sees hundreds of boxes of 2020 election records from Fulton County earlier this year.

Um, and the claims cited by the FBI in their affidavit have already been investigated by state investigators.

And they haven't found any intentional misconduct.

So with all that in mind, do you think the ballot seizure was justified?

Yeah.

We're going to start with you.

We're going to start with Ted Metz.

Looking your.

Way.

On the one hand, since there was really no election that occurred because the violations of federal election law to begin with, also the violations of Georgia law in how the Dominion system operates.

There really wasn't an election to certify in the first place.

There have there were hundreds of affidavits sworn by poll officers that said that they saw pristine ballots going through the system that were not on the correct paper stock, and that they looked like they were obviously printed.

No one has ever been able to look at the ballots from the 2020 election, especially the absentee ballots.

There are still waiting on the courts to allow voter GA in that group access to actually look at the ballots from the 2020 election.

If the election was so clean and pristine, why are they trying so hard to keep anyone from looking at it?

It makes no sense to me other than probably it was something wrong with the election.

Gabriel Sterling.

Look, they had a warrant.

Fulton complied.

That's where we stand right now.

The FBI has them, and I think they can look at all this data and all this information again, that has been looked at by both state investigators and the GBI and the FBI.

I don't think you're going to see anything different come out.

But the thing is, this is looking backwards six years.

We have to look forward.

Now.

We're in 2026.

We had a record turnout yesterday for the beginning of early voting for a midterm election.

The faith has been restored except for for a small segment of Georgians.

And we have a very good system.

People like doing it.

They go in, they show their ID, they vote very quickly, very easily.

We got rid of lines.

We have to look at the reality of this in 2024, right after the election, 90.5% of conservatives said they believe the outcome and 98.6% of Georgians had a great voting experience and 0-0 African Americans were found to have had a problem voting.

We have to be in a position to defend ourselves from when the Democrats come and they will come again every time because they want to get rid of our voter ID laws they want to get rid of.

Okay, I got two different times up here of our of our election security, and we have to be in a position to win.

I'm the only candidate on the stage who's done that already.

All right, Kelvin King, your chance now to answer.

Fulton County was a mess.

And unfortunately, it hasn't been resolved.

We just want to see the work.

Everyone here who's gone through grammar school, you know that your math teacher says, hey, it looks like you have a good answer, but show me your work.

That's all we're asking from Fulton County is show us your work.

Why aren't they showing us at work?

They're missing tabulator tapes.

There's ten missing tabulator tapes.

That represents over 20,000 votes.

That's missing.

There's over 315,000 votes that were unsigned.

The tabulation tapes.

You have to sign them.

You have to have a zero tape.

And then you have to have the actual number of votes.

And you have to sign both.

That's not even existing.

It's not there.

How can investigations be done?

And 0-0 came out of the outcome.

No outcomes, no issues.

That's a problem.

Someone is wrong here.

And I trust the people of Georgia.

And right now I'm trusting the FBI because the Secretary of State's office is not my seat or Raffensperger seat.

It's the people's seat.

And the people deserve answers.

Vernon Jones.

Um, look, we don't have two heads here.

We know that there are a lot of election irregularities and some would say outright fraud in Fulton County and some other counties.

If you don't have anything to hide, then why?

Why are you refusing someone to come in with a second set of eyes?

Look, we've had 315,000 ballots that were not properly signed off on.

And by the way, these pallets of ballots in Fulton County, they've been there for, what, almost six years?

Why was there such an effort to keep a second set of eyes from looking at those ballots?

What do they have to hide?

I can tell you right now, as we used to say back on the farm, there's a dead cat on the end of that line.

There's something there.

I want the Justice Department to look at it.

And I've gone all over the state, and I haven't heard anyone say that they got a call and say they have confidence in this election.

As a matter of fact, it's been the other way around where I've wherever I've gone all over this state, I'm hearing voters say, we don't trust our elections.

We don't trust what happened in various counties.

We want the FBI, the Department of Justice to look at these records.

We want another set of eyes to make sure that it was a free, fair and transparent election.

And even by their own local election offices, they've admitted to even registering people who were not even U.S.

Citizens.

So we do have problems.

Kate, can you ask your next question, please?

This is another question for everyone.

The first Liberty financial case put the securities division of the Secretary of State's office in the spotlight.

How well do you think that office handled that case?

And is there anything you would have done differently?

And let's start with Gabe Sterling.

Well, I mean, this is one of those situations where the perpetrators confessed to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

They were not under our area for regulation because they were doing loans.

If you saw their ads, they said when the big banks turned you down, we we do it for you.

So the reality of it was that it came to us through the Securities Exchange Commission.

But from that point, we've been the Trump U.S.

Attorney has praised our office for giving the evidentiary set together for them to actually start the prosecution of Mr.

Frost that started last week or week before last.

Our office did a fantastic job of doing that, finding victims.

And then we began a new investigation, and we have now worked with Bankers Trust and been able to get 46 of those individuals who were fully scammed, $6.7 million of their money back.

This was a disgusting Ponzi scheme where they used people's Christian values and conservative values and Trump support to trick them into giving their life savings over.

I think anybody who benefits from that should be going to jail.

Kelvin King, can you respond, please?

Yeah, I actually agree with Gabriel that it was a disgusting event Ponzi scheme.

And regardless of what you think about the ownership or the leadership of First Liberty Building and loans, because they did, uh, operate incorrectly.

I agree.

But the problem is more than just first liberty building and loans.

It's actually Secretary of State's office.

That office is responsible for oversight and regulation and administering our our Georgia Securities Act.

And unfortunately, in this case, with First Liberty building loans, that company had not been reviewed by the Secretary of State's office.

Their license had not been reviewed by the Secretary of State's office.

And over ten years.

Now, I know there's a lot of license holders out here in Georgia.

I'm one of them.

I can't go ten years without my license being renewed or reviewed by the Secretary of State's office.

So in my in my opinion, what happened is the Secretary of State's office is reactionary.

Now they see they dropped the ball and now they're trying to clean up the mess.

This office has been failing in all three major areas elections, business, licensing and securities.

And we've got to fix it.

I'm the only candidate that can fix it.

Gabriel Sterling, I think you have a response to that.

This just shows Mr.

King doesn't quite understand how the office works.

Unfortunately, the First liberty was not licensed that way.

The only people were licensed were going to be the people selling the securities.

And those are the ones we've had three different half million dollar fines, which is the most that we can do.

As secretary.

I want to reorganize it into the financial protection division.

And right now, our budget until last year was $800,000.

The we have this large responsibility, but we don't we don't have the resources right now.

The legislature hasn't given this to us.

I want to make sure we do have the resources, because we have to stop this.

And we've passed a lot of new laws to protect our seniors, and I'm proud of the work we did.

Vernon Jones your response to the question?

AJC reported that.

It's my time.

It's my time.

Vernon Jones you need to answer the question that you are taking taxpayers dollars right now in the contract.

You have an answer to that yet?

Um, let me just say this.

You and I both know that people call the Secretary of State's office.

They had a problem.

What I have a problem with.

Why did it take so long for the Secretary of State's office to respond at all?

Why did it take media stories for someone to respond?

They knew it was going on.

The other thing is, if the Secretary of State can't get the budget, then that's why I say that my experience as served in that legislature being on appropriations, I know how that body works.

I know how to work with that body to get resources to fully staff an office and operate an office in the highest level of integrity.

That problem was existing for a long period of time.

And finally, finally, I want to thank the media.

I don't think the media that often, but I want to thank the media for really bringing that story to to the forefront where those who were victims of that they got just due and those who were the criminals, they are being handled with swift justice as well.

And so under Jones administration, we would not allow things to fester like that.

We would jump in and jump on it in advance and be proactive with a hotline, with everyone to call us and let us know when they have issues like that and follow up on those issues.

Ted Metz, you're a chance to answer this question.

All right.

First and foremost, because first, liberty was technically a bank.

It would have fallen under the banking and banking regulators, not the Secretary of State's office, per se.

And until the Secretary of State's office gets a complaint about a securities agent doing something wrong, they're not going to know how to act unless they're actually looking for it.

The other thing about the whole liberty first thing is that many people know how deeply, money wise, the Frost family has been involved in the Georgia Republican Party.

And I think a lot of the oversight has been overlooked due to the amount of money that the Frost family has donated so generously to candidates like Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, et cetera.. So the whole thing was wrong.

I'm glad that they're getting their just deserts, and I hope this also gives us an opportunity to look deeper into the Banking Committee to make sure that this isn't happening anywhere else in the state.

Caleb, you have another question for the candidates?

Yeah, several candidates here have said they want to streamline the professional licensing and cut through red tape.

So how would each of you do that ?

Let's begin with let's begin with Vernon.

One of the biggest issues that the board members themselves.

As a matter of fact, Mr.

King sits on the board and you can't even determine how to reach the board members.

They just show their names.

Those boards are political appointees, and many of them you cannot even determine.

You cannot even determine which of those boards when they're meeting properly, where the citizen can come to those board meetings and find out what's going on.

It's like pulling teeth.

Secondly, I would make sure that those licenses, again, I said it earlier, if you don't have your license within 30 days, that you'll be given a temporary license.

Many people who are come here nursing and others having a hard time getting their license because the response time they're leaving and going back to other states, we need to keep them here so the government should not come again between you and your paycheck hairstylists, barbers, many of them are having major problems.

Why?

Because the staff and as a matter of fact, I know there was a system put in earlier called Coates that gold that's not working properly and that needs to be addressed as well.

Kelvin King, let's go to you.

Yeah, I'm not real sure what you're talking about.

Vernon, but.

The no bid contract you have, that's what I'm.

Talking about.

I don't have no bid contract.

Are you getting paid by the state of Georgia?

I don't have a no bid.

Contract paid by the state of Georgia with a contract.

I don't have no bid contract.

Do you have a contract?

Just like.

Everybody else?

Georgia.

Do you like getting.

Paid taxpayers dollars as you stand here?

It's legal.

Are you paying?

It's illegal.

Is it legal or not?

It's legal.

That's not you.

All right?

This is part of your time, so.

Well, it's legal, okay?

I compete with everybody else.

So you see.

What?

Taxpayers dollars.

But he will not come out and say.

I don't have any contracts.

What are you talking about?

You don't have a business.

I don't have a I do have.

15 seconds left.

Kelvin King.

What do you do?

What do you do?

I'm a consultant.

Do you provide.

Government relations.

Service employees?

Do you have.

I hold on.

No, wait a minute.

Let me answer your question.

Pardon me.

Let me ask you a question.

Pardon me sir, so do you have a contract with.

Kelvin King?

You've lost your time.

Do you?

Lost your contract.

With Kelvin King?

You've lost your time.

Let's go on to Gabe Sterling.

Gabriel Sterling.

The reality of this is Vernon has a good point that there is there's a problem with the boards.

The fortunate part is we work with the legislature and have already passed a law that now allows us to do administrative issue.

If you meet every part that you have to do.

Previously, we had to wait for the boards to meet.

Nurses had to wait for the boards to tell them to take tests.

Since we put in the goal system now, which I'm very proud of, is the Georgia Online Application Licensing system.

We took nursing license times for the first issuance from 66 days down to 48 days.

Now we had it down to ten days.

The team came back to us and said, we can do better.

We got down to six days.

We took the renewal time on that from four days to about 1 minute.

We continue to invest, but we will always measure.

We will always look for ways to improve because we do want to take it to a Chick-fil-A level of customer service, because we want to make sure we get every Georgia to work.

Tim Metz, can you answer the question, please?

I can answer the question by, first and foremost, quoting from Murphy versus Ohio, where the U.S.

Supreme Court says that the states do not have the constitutional authority to turn a right into something.

They have to pay for a license for.

I think the whole licensing scheme is completely unconstitutional to start with.

However, we do need public protection in certain, uh, professional areas where I think it's best to just take a test, pass the test, get a license.

The boards are archaic, they are all appointees.

They are hard to get Ahold of.

They have their own agenda, especially in the medical field, where they're trying to make sure that they don't have any competition.

The whole system needs a major overhaul.

All right.

Thank you so much.

For the most part, you all did very well.

I just had one little hiccup there.

That's all the time we have now for questions.

The candidates will now have 60s for closing statements.

Kelvin King, let's begin with you this time.

Yeah thank you.

Thank you Karen.

Thanks, Caleb.

Kate.

I hope Georgia was able to see the differences in these candidates.

I stand out, I'm the only candidate that has been a military officer that served proudly in our U.S.

Air Force.

The only candidate in this race that actually has a real business with employees.

And that I grew from scratch.

The only candidate that has a general contractor's license on this, on this, on this, within these these candidates.

And as a licensed general contractor, former Air Force officer, I'm going to work for you.

I'm going to work for Georgians.

There's no other candidate that's campaigned across the state.

I have every county organized.

I have the most cash on hand, and I'm running for you and your seat.

Daniel Webster said, our government is for the people, by the people and answerable to the people.

That's what you'll get under King administration.

We're going to make sure that we answer the people's questions.

We're going to make sure that our business licensing has a response and a service orientation where business owners aren't fighting with our government, that they can go and get a job and do their trade.

Vote for Kelvin King on April on May 19th, and I'll make sure that your vote is protected, your business is protected, and your wealth is protected.

Vernon Jones.

Yes, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you all.

Thank you.

Karen Atlanta Press Club I want to be clear, I don't have a contract with the state of Georgia.

And if I did, unlike Mr.

King, I would tell you I have it.

In addition to that, you want someone that's going to talk about free, fair and transparent, not only walk the walk, but talk the talk.

My legislative experience, executive experience, and overseeing local elections.

I've run a government.

I'm the only one that's actually run a government and been on executive side.

So I know how to work with the legislature to address the issues legislatively and through executive order to make sure that office is running in the most efficient and effective way, not only with this election, but also those boards.

I don't sit on the board and deny on a board like Mr.

King.

He denied being on the board.

I'm for free, transparent.

The board that you sit on is the opportunity board.

Matter of fact, matter of fact.

I'll give you the board, Mr.

King.

You only have a few seconds left.

Okay.

Give him the boy.

15 seconds.

So you said, Mr.

King, the Georgia Commission of Equal Opportunity Board for the commission.

Now, is you on that board?

Are you not on that board, Mr.

King?

Yeah.

So people.

But you just said you were not on that board.

Mr.

King.

That is.

Your.

Time, Mr.

Jones.

That is your time.. I served honorably on that board.. All right, let's go with Ted Metz.

All right.

Once elected.

Once elected, I'll study the policies, procedures and personnel.

Compared to the lawful duties and authorities, and will end any unauthorized operations.

I'll examine the organizational structure for deficiencies and redundancies.

I'll inventory the facilities, the computers, the servers, the software to establish necessity, obsolescence, utilization.

And I'll map the the networks looking for bottlenecks and communications between the divisions, the boards and the staff.

I'll ensure that the email messaging programs and the messaging programs are all publicly transparent.

I'll review the budget and expenditures for economies of scale and cost reductions.

I'll review the vendor contracts for necessity versus what can be done in-house.

I'll meet with the boards, the division heads and the staff to identify training opportunities and to establish performance standards for each area.

Under my oversight, to ensure that they know their mission is to serve the citizens of Georgia with their best efforts.

Only after complete audit will I know the precise measures necessary to right the ship and what to take to the legislature for them to fix any candidate that says otherwise doesn't know public administration, resource allocation, the duties and authorities of the office, or the concept of separation of powers.

And the.

Gabriel Sterling, you have the final statement.

Well, it's been fun.

I think we've seen a clear choice on stage tonight here.

I'm the only candidate who has a history of fighting the Democrats and winning in court and campaigns.

And I'm keeping the main thing, the main thing Democrats want to get in and tear down the safeguards around our elections.

We can know this because of their lawsuits and because of their votes.

I'm the only person with a proven record of fighting them and winning.

When Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden's Justice Department, the entire world came and took the all star game away, I was the one in the courtroom fighting them and winning and defending SB 202, the Election Integrity Act, and making us, according to Fox News and Heritage, the best and safest state to vote in America.

And I'm going to continue to do that as your secretary.

One thing I failed to mention in my opening is I'm a new dad.

I've got a six month old son at home, and he is a joy.

And he's really crystallized the rationale for me to be here and fight for Georgia.

I've been doing it for 40 years and will continue to do it.

I'm going to fight for conservative victories, and we're going to keep Georgia the best state to vote, the best state to have a business and the best state in America.

Gabriel Sterling, I need your vote.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Early voting has already begun.

I'm Karen Greer.

Thank you for joining us for the Atlanta Press Club.

Loudermilk-Young Debate Series.