A Georgia organization that disseminates false material during elections acquires clout with electoral officials

New Georgia regulations have ties to a contentious organization that has disproportionately increased its power in the Peach State, which some authorities worry could cause instability in November’s election.

Despite his propensity for disseminating electoral misinformation, Garland Favorito, a computer consultant turned activist, has gained traction with some Georgian election officials through his nonprofit organization, VoterGA.

The new regulations, which were put out by VoterGA supporters and approved by the state’s Republican-controlled election board, mandate that counties manually count the ballots that voters cast on election day at polling locations. They also contain a provision that increases the discretion of partisan county election boards in postponing the certification of election results.

Though both of those regulations have been contested in court, they have created more uncertainty about the procedures involved in the vote counting process in a crucial battleground state with less than a month until the election.

Favorito and his organization have been actively working to stop the widespread fraud they mistakenly believe happened in the 2020 election, in addition to advocating for the rules to be passed. They have held poll-watcher training sessions, sent shady warnings about purported election vulnerabilities by message to officials, and angrily attacked voting machines in state board of election hearings. Additionally, the group benefited financially from a company that Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to President Trump, co-founded.

According to some officials, Favorito’s and his group’s ascent exemplifies how, throughout the past four years, election conspiracy theories in Georgia have evolved from being considered outlandish to mainstream.

Favorito was “sort of a gadfly that nobody paid attention to for many years, and now he’s the center of attention,” according to Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s secretary of state’s top operating officer. “People are paying attention to him. But the fundamental conspiracy beliefs, which we have repeatedly shown to be false, are what matter most.

Favorito claimed in a phone interview with CNN that he and his organization are fighting for the integrity of elections and that certain local and state officials have attempted to conceal election fraud in Georgia. For instance, he cited his inability to review ballots from the 2020 election.