Editor’s note: More than 10,000 officials across the country run U.S. elections. This interview is part of a series highlighting the election heroes who are the faces of democracy.
In addition to being a former member of the Georgia State Election Board, Edward Lindsey is a partner in Dentons' public policy practice and serves as the head of the firm's Georgia state government affairs team. His focus is on advancing the public policy interests and objectives of clients in the transportation, infrastructure, health care, and education sectors.
Edward has over 39 years of experience in law, politics, and leadership, including 10 years as a Georgia state representative and three terms as the Georgia House Majority Whip. He also served on the state’s House Appropriations, Judiciary, Education, Ways and Means, and Rules Committees. In addition, he served as a member of the Uniform Law Commission and the Georgia Commission on Family Violence. James Magazine, a statewide political journal, recognized him as one of Georgia's most influential legislators while he was in office and has since recognized him as one of the state’s top lobbyists and political lawyers.
Edward has also been actively engaged in election law issues over the years, representing candidates and elected officials in election-related matters. In January 2022, he was appointed by Georgia Speaker David Ralston to the Georgia State Election Board.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Issue One: How did you end up in the election administration profession?
Edward Lindsey: I served on the Fulton County election board from 2002 to 2004, and then I was elected to the Georgia State House, and served there for a decade. I was the majority whip for my last three terms, where I worked on election issues. My party, the Republican Party, at the time was interested in making it easier for folks to vote and giving folks greater choices. Georgia was one of the first states, for instance, to pass early voting. We also passed, for the first time, a bill that allowed folks to vote absentee by mail for any reason.
I left the Georgia General Assembly in 2014, and my law practice became more involved in election issues, representing a lot of candidates in their campaigns, and touched on election issues. In 2018, there was a challenge to our recently elected Lieutenant Governor, Jeff Duncan. I represented him in that legal contest in 2019 and successfully upheld the election on the trial level, and then successfully argued for that case to be affirmed before the Georgia Supreme Court.
After the 2020 election, I was approached by Georgia’s then-Speaker of the House, David Ralston, and asked to serve on the Georgia State Election Board. I served on the election board for over two years and tackled a lot of the election contests that arose out of the 2020 election. It was a historical event, and there's only been two or three equally challenging elections on a national level that this country's ever faced. The pandemic radically challenged how we conducted elections that year. One example is voting by mail. Historically, in Georgia, somewhere around 6% of the voters vote by mail. In that election year, close to 50% of the people voted by mail in the primary. In the general election, somewhere around 35% of the population voted by mail. There was also a great change in other voting patterns, such as early voting, which put a great strain on Georgia's election system infrastructure. The infrastructure is used to only 6% of the population voting by mail, and suddenly it was dealing with a huge increase of people voting by mail, which created a lot of challenges for the system. During that two and a half year period that I served on the state election board,we had to deal with those issues. We had to distinguish between irregularities and mistakes versus the plethora of claims regarding outright fraud. We had to do a deep dive and found that mistakes had been made, but fraud was relatively rare in Georgia. It did take place, but it was rather sort of scared, scattered fraud, rather than some type of systemic matter. The biggest problem was the burden that had been placed on county election boards and county election systems that required them to think outside the box a great deal. As a result, some mistakes were made, none that ultimately were found to have changed the outcome of the election, but they did raise certain concerns among people.
Issue One: What part of the election administration story in Georgia isn’t told enough or isn’t understood widely enough?
Edward Lindsey: There is an enormous misconception in Georgia as to how elections are run. I think the general population believes that the elections are run by the Secretary of State and the state election board. That's not entirely accurate. However, they do play a role. For the most part, we have a very diffused system of 159 counties that have their own county election system set up, and I think a lot of folks do not necessarily understand the important role that the counties play in the election system. As a result of that, another misconception is the state election board. The state election board is set up to take a look at any issues that come up in the previous election, and try to make sure they get corrected. It doesn't actually run the elections themselves. It has an important role in terms of enforcement of rules and regulations in the law after the fact, but in terms of the actual administration of elections, its role is primarily one of attempting to offer support to the counties. That's probably the biggest misconception that takes place, how diffused the system is here in Georgia in terms of how our elections run.
Issue One: What are some of the greatest challenges to building confidence in elections in Georgia?
Edward Lindsey: I've thought a great deal about that over the last few years. I’m now off the state board, however I’m still active in elections work, through work with different organizations such as Issue One and the American Bar Association. The greatest challenge that I see honestly is that conspiracies travel by rocket ship, and the truth travels by wagon train. That’s the biggest issue that we have to deal with. When I was on the board we had to deal with an enormous volume of claims regarding election fraud and how it may have impacted the outcome of the 2020 election. We had to deal with that very judiciously. We had to parse out the facts versus theories.
Issue One: Why do you think that voters should have trust in election processes and results specifically in Georgia?
Edward Lindsey: I worked with a lot of the people that serve on the county level. Our board wanted to build a more solid relationship with the county election boards. Because of this, we spent a lot of time working with the county election boards. I wish folks in their respective counties could spend a little bit more time with their local election officials. They'll find a very dedicated group of individuals in our counties that are working very hard to make sure that the citizens in their counties can vote and that their votes will be received.
We have a secure system here in Georgia. We have to remain constantly vigilant in terms of looking out for folks who want to manipulate our system. There are dark forces out there that wish to do so, but I've seen a lot of great individuals on the county level, and in the Georgia Secretary of State's office, who are dedicated to staying ahead of the bad guys.I do think we have a very secure system here in Georgia. We do face challenges, but we meet those challenges and take them seriously. I know that we need to be constantly vigilant and upgrading, but that our system is secure because of the quality of the people working on the problem and the nature of the setup that makes it easier for people to vote, easier for their votes to be accurate and secure.
Issue One: Why is transparency in election administration important in your job? How have you worked to bring more transparency to the world of election administration?
Edward Lindsey: Ensuring the system is as open as possible and that people are able to observe how the election process takes place is important. Creating a place where people can come ask questions is extremely important for folks to have confidence.
Issue One: In recent years, election-related misconceptions, conspiracy theories, and lies have proliferated. How has this impacted your daily work?
Edward Lindsey: The level of anger I saw while serving on the state election board steadily increased as the vitriol, lies, and misconceptions grew. We actually had a situation once where our chair, Bill Duffy, opened the meeting with a prayer and got heckled. I'm sitting there, leaning over to another board member, saying, “Well, when they start heckling the prayer, you know it's going to be a long day.”
That just shows you the level of anger that’s out there. And when you're angry, you don’t think clearly. We’ve all experienced that—anger doesn’t lead to thoughtful consideration. And yet, there's this rising temperature among those who want to question the integrity of the election system. It’s as if, if you don’t agree with them, then you must be corrupt, and that impairs our system.
I think it’s going to have a long-term impact, and I’m concerned about what that impact will be. Specifically, who’s going to be willing to come in and work within our election system when they see the kind of abuse that so many folks in the system receive? People have to start asking themselves: is this a good career choice?
It’s not just about disagreeing with someone’s judgment. People think if you disagree with someone’s judgement, then you must be corrupt. And that’s just not the case. A lot of times, good, honest people can look at the same facts and come to different conclusions. But it’s only through thoughtful discourse that you can reach any kind of common ground. And that kind of discourse is getting harder and harder to find.
Issue One: Given these challenges, what inspires you to stay in this line of work?
Edward Lindsey: Folks need to understand that the process is more important than the outcome of any one particular election. What I mean by that is, in a free society, voters must have confidence in the outcome of the election—even if their candidate loses.
In fact, it's often even more important for people to have confidence in the results when their candidate does lose. That way, those who are elected can actually do the hard work of governing. You can’t govern effectively if voters don’t trust the outcome.
Issue One: In the United States, election administration is not centralized. All of our 50 states have 50 different election administration systems. What are the key features or nuances of the system in Georgia?
Edward Lindsey: Yeah, Georgia has a very decentralized system. We have 159 counties, with their own election officials and election boards. These local officials are responsible for managing the election process on the ground in their respective areas. Then you have the Secretary of State, who plays a supervisory role over those 159 counties. Then there is the State Election Board, which is responsible for overseeing investigations into any alleged election-related misconduct. All of these entities work together within the broader election system.
What’s important to understand—and what I think a lot of people may not realize—is just how difficult it would be to cheat on a statewide level in a way that actually makes a difference. With 159 counties operating somewhat independently, it would be incredibly hard for anyone to coordinate systemic fraud across the state.
Issue One: Many people are surprised to learn that the federal government doesn’t routinely fund the costs of running elections. Why do you think that the federal government should routinely fund our elections?
Edward Lindsey: It depends on the nature of the federal involvement. I do believe it’s a good thing that all 50 states administer their own elections and that, within each state, there's a decentralized system. I think that creates a more secure overall process than some kind of unified, centralized system.
I do worry about the lack of funding in many areas—particularly in our more rural counties. So, I believe it would be helpful for the federal government, as it does in some other areas, to provide block grants to those counties. That kind of support could help ensure they’re able to run elections openly and fairly.
I’m not a fan of the federal government coming in and dictating how the money is spent, but I do recognize the wide disparities in revenue and resources across counties. A block grant program could be very helpful, especially for our more impoverished areas.
To give a clear example from my own state: there’s a big difference in the financial resources available to counties like Gwinnett, Fulton, Cobb, or DeKalb, our largest counties, compared to places like Wilcox or Echols. Many of those smaller counties struggle to run elections because they rely heavily on limited local revenue.
I do think federal assistance could play a meaningful role, as needed.
Issue One: Outside of your time working in elections, what are your hobbies or what is a fund fact that most people might not know about you?
Edward Lindsey: I love photography. I’m passionate about memorializing my family history through photography. I like not only taking the pictures, but also editing them and putting them in order so people can see how our family has progressed over time.
Issue One: What is your favorite book or movie?
Edward Lindsey: I’m a prolific reader, and I love my Kindle, for instance, because it lets me jump around from one book to another. On any given night before I fall asleep, I might read four or five chapters from four or five different books. It’s difficult to name just one favorite.
I’m very much a student of history, and I love reading books that teach me something I didn’t already know, especially in areas where I thought I was already well-informed.
One book I really enjoyed was written by Michael Thurmond, a historian here in Georgia. He’s also an elected official, but I think his first passion is history. He wrote a book called Freedom, which chronicles African American history in Georgia—from the time of Oglethorpe, when Georgia became a colony in the 1730s, through the Civil War. It’s a fascinating account of the emergence of African American culture in Georgia and the immense struggles so many people faced under slavery. I found it deeply compelling.
I’m also an avid outdoorsman, and I especially love whitewater canoeing and rafting. There’s a great book from the 1980s called Running the Amazon, which chronicles one of the first attempts to raft the entire Amazon River, from its headwaters in Peru, through the Amazon rainforest, and all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a fascinating adventure story that really captured my imagination.
Issue One: Which historical figure would you have most liked the opportunity to meet?
Edward Lindsey: I’d say a historical figure I greatly admire is John Adams.
He is oftentimes not given his due for his role of forming this country and the rule of law. He was a passionate revolutionary and believed in American freedom. Yet, one of his most important legal cases was defending a group of British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. He did this because he believed in the rule of law. He wanted to ensure they had a fair trial and he continued that passion through his work in Congress.
Angelina Clapp is the campaign manager for the Election Protection team at Issue One.
