Georgia Election Board Members Coordinated With Cleta Mitchell's Network
ProPublica investigation reveals links between state election officials and conservative activist group
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Cleta Mitchell speaks about elections at the South Carolina Republican Party's inaugural First in the South Republican Action Conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in October 2021.
Photograph: Truthout (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Georgia's State Election Board members and staff coordinated with the Election Integrity Network (EIN), an activist group led by Cleta Mitchell.
- This coordination involved promoting a software tool called ELLY to search voter rolls for suspicious voters.
- Current and former board members, including Janelle King and Janice Johnston, attended meetings with EIN or affiliated groups.
- James Mills, the board's executive director, also worked closely with EIN members, according to sources and documents.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. Coverage measured .
Trust
70/100
Craft
70/100
Hype
45/100
6 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
None of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Members of Georgia's State Election Board and much of its professional staff coordinated with the Election Integrity Network (EIN) and allied organizations in the period before the midterms. Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who worked with Donald Trump, leads the EIN. The coordination focused on advancing the use of a software tool named ELLY, which searches voter rolls. Current and former board members, including Janelle King and Janice Johnston, attended meetings of EIN or affiliated groups. James Mills, the board's executive director, also worked closely with EIN members, according to sources and documents.
Disagreements on Influence and Awareness
The extent of EIN's influence and awareness of it among board leadership is disputed. Max Flugrath, a director at Fair Fight Action, stated that EIN had "extraordinary influence" and was the "behind-the-scenes driver" pushing changes. He claimed Trump allies captured the board to promote claims of a stolen 2020 election and favour Republicans. John Fervier, the board's chair, told ProPublica he had not known about EIN's sway but sensed an outside force shaping the board's actions, stating, "The Election Integrity Network has been having an undue influence on the State Election Board, and that needs to cease." Garland Favorito, an EIN leader and head of VoterGA, called the idea of secret coordination a "patently false conspiracy theory."
Omissions in coverage
None of the left-rated or centre-rated reports printed below mention the specific details of the affidavit authorizing the raid on Fulton County election records, which cited Johnston and King as witnesses and a report by an EIN researcher. Similarly, none of the reports mention the specific details of EIN pushing a rule change through the State Election Board in 2024 that allowed local officials to potentially delay certifying vote counts, which a court later struck down.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 4 times, most recently on 14 Nov 2026, 04:45, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
5 rated outlets
- Left-rated reports led with the coordination between Georgia's State Election Board members and staff and the Election Integrity Network (EIN), an activist group led by conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell. Truthout, Georgia Public Broadcasting, ProPublica, electionlawblog.org, and Raw Story all highlighted this connection. These reports detailed how the coordination involved advancing the use of a controversial software tool called ELLY to search voter rolls. They noted that current and former board members, including Janelle King and Janice Johnston, attended meetings with EIN or affiliated groups. The reports also stated that James Mills, the board's executive director, worked closely with EIN members. Truthout quoted Max Flugrath of Fair Fight Action, who said EIN had "extraordinary influence" and was the "behind-the-scenes driver" of changes, and board chair John Fervier, who stated the EIN's influence "needs to cease."
Centre
1 rated outlet
- The centre-rated report from Political Wire focused on the core finding of coordination between Georgia's Election Board and Cleta Mitchell's network. It cited ProPublica's report stating that board members and staff were coordinating with the activist group led by Mitchell, who is described as the conservative attorney who worked with Donald Trump to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The digest noted that this coordination occurred in the run-up to the midterms and involved the use of the ELLY software tool for searching voter rolls.
Right
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated right has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Georgia Election Board Members Coordinated With Cleta Mitchell's Network?
- Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 83% are rated left, 17% are rated centre, 0% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Georgia Election Board Members Coordinated With Cleta Mitchell's Network left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Georgia Election Board Members Coordinated With Cleta Mitchell's Network biased?
- Georgia Election Board Members Coordinated With Cleta Mitchell's Network is one event reported by 6 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Georgia Election Board Members Coordinated With Cleta Mitchell's Network?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Georgia Election Board Members Coordinated With Cleta Mitchell's Network?
- 6 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- What is the Election Integrity Network?
- The Election Integrity Network (EIN) is an activist group led by Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who worked with Donald Trump. The group has been involved in efforts to influence election processes in Georgia, including promoting the use of a software tool called ELLY to search voter rolls.
- What is the ELLY software tool?
- ELLY is a controversial software tool used to search voter rolls. It aggregates public data from various sources, but voting rights groups have stated it often erroneously flags legitimate voters, leading to potential inaccuracies in voter purges.
- Who are the key figures involved?
- Key figures include Cleta Mitchell, leader of the EIN; James Mills, executive director of the Georgia State Election Board; and current and former board members Janelle King and Janice Johnston, who have attended EIN meetings.
Read it at the source
6 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
5- GA Election Board Members Coordinated With Right-Wing Network Before Midterms (opens Truthout in a new tab)
- "Members of Georgia’s Election Board Have Been Coordinating With Cleta Mitchell’s Network" #ELB (opens electionlawblog.org in a new tab)
electionlawblog.org — is electionlawblog.org biased? Our profile of this outlet
- 'That needs to cease': GOP chair declares war on election deniers steering Georgia board (opens Raw Story in a new tab)
- Members of Georgia’s election board have been coordinating with Cleta Mitchell’s network (opens Georgia Public Broadcasting in a new tab)
Georgia Public Broadcasting — is Georgia Public Broadcasting biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Members of Georgia’s Election Board Have Been Coordinating With Cleta Mitchell’s Network (opens ProPublica in a new tab)
ProPublica — is ProPublica biased? Our profile of this outlet
Centre
1Right
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Not rated
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
How did this read?
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