Democratic SOS Candidate Response to Karen Handel Resignation

We just received the following release from Gary Horlacher, a Democratic candidate for Secretary of State, in response to Karen Handel’s announcement this afternoon that she is resigning her post as Secretary of State. Jeff will write his own thoughts later this evening or tomorrow morning.

Congratulations Karen Handel!
This is the first correct action you have taken since entering this office.

Ms. Handel’s mishandling of the Secretary of State’s office has gone way beyond incompetence. She crossed the misconduct line by inappropriately using this office to both foster her own political ambitions and to use her authority in the elections oversight process for her party’s political benefit. By stepping down, she not only provides herself with the much needed “flexibility” to continue raising campaign contributions for her gubernatorial campaign during the upcoming Legislative Session, but she also “ducks and dodges” any needs to be totally nonpartisan while conducting fair, objective and competent election oversight duties.

You want some objective analysis of her conduct of the functions of this office?

• She was slapped down three times by the courts, including a unanimous decision by the State Supreme Court, for wrongly attempting to remove a Democratic candidate from the 2008 ballot.
• She was slammed by both the Bush and Obama Justice Departments for attempting to purge voters from being eligible to vote by using voter registration flagging tactics, which unfairly targeted “certain demographics”.
• During the 2009 legislative session, she was even rebuked by a member of the State Election Board (who also happened to be the Republican Party legal counsel) for going too far in her support of S.B. 86, a bill designed to institute unfair “proof of citizenship” requirements and thereby thwart, yet again, the registration efforts of voters belonging to “certain demographics”.
• And let’s not forget, she broke the central pledge of her 2006 campaign, to immediately install a verifiable paper trail for the electronic voting machines.

Goodbye Ms. Palin……ah Ms. Handel.

We will continue to post candidate reactions as we get them.