Georgia secretary of state candidate Kelvin King has an unorthodox view of what it means to protect people’s voting rights, but it’s a perspective the Republican wants other Black Georgians to consider.
GOP state officials, including current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have maintained that illegal voting isn’t a widespread problem in Georgia, citing multiple audits as evidence. Georgia’s election integrity is tied for fifth best in the nation, according to a scorecard generated by The Heritage Foundation, the prominent conservative think tank behind Project 2025.
Yet King, and other election integrity advocates, still say that Georgia’s election system has major problems following the contentious 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, even after the controversial enactment of State Bill 202, aka the Election Integrity Act of 2021.
King said state election officials removing an estimated 480,000 “inactive” voters on the rolls this summer proves his concerns about potential voter fraud are valid. He argued that failing to stop undocumented immigrants and other ineligible voters from casting ballots in elections dilutes the power of lawful voters, including those who are Black.
“It disenfranchises a qualified voter if unqualified voters are on the rolls,” King told Capital B Atlanta during a recent phone interview. For King, ensuring Black Georgians have access to the ballot box is only one half of the voting rights equation.
“The other half is making sure that [the vote] is accurate,” he said. “I want both.”
Who is Kelvin King?
King is the 51-year-old retired U.S. Air Force veteran and owner of Osprey Management, a Marietta-based construction firm, who is running to replace Raffensperger as the state’s top election official next year. Raffensperger recently announced a 2026 run for governor.
In addition to King, next year’s list of Republican secretary of state candidates includes Gabe Sterling, Raffensperger’s former chief operating officer, and state Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, who previously served as chief of staff to GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.
Voting rights advocate Adrian Consonery Jr. and former Fulton County state Judge Penny Brown Reynolds are among the Democrats vying to replace Raffensperger, who received support from Democratic voters in 2022, two years after refusing to help Trump overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
Investigations and audits led by Raffensperger’s office determined no widespread voter fraud took place during the 2020 election cycle, but King and other GOP critics still have major concerns about the integrity of Georgia’s elections, citing irregularities people have raised at State Election Board meetings since 2020.
“I do want to make sure that all the open questions are answered,” King said. “That’s what the secretary of state’s office and the AG [are] supposed to do.”
King said he doesn’t dispute that Biden won in 2020.
“He won,” King said of Biden. “He signed his paper. He said his oath of office.”
King is married to conservative radio personality Janelle King, a fellow Republican and staunch election integrity advocate who was appointed to the State Election Board in May 2024. He was also one of the GOP U.S. Senate primary race candidates who lost to Herschel Walker in 2022 after Walker received an endorsement from Trump.
During that primary race, King warned fellow Republicans that supporting the scandal-plagued Walker would all but guarantee a win for U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, who defeated the University of Georgia football legend in a runoff election later the same year.
How King wants to protect elections
King wants to increase voter list maintenance work to ensure only qualified voters are on the rolls in Georgia. He also wants to change the law that allows Georgians to automatically register to vote when they get or renew their driver’s license.
The Center for Election Innovation and Research credited that policy with increasing Georgia’s active voter registration rate by 20 percentage points between 2016 and 2020. A representative from CEIR told Capital B Atlanta that King’s view that ending automatic voter registration will lead to more accurate voter rolls “does not align” with its research.
King acknowledged voting is a constitutional right for which African Americans have spent centuries fighting to secure and maintain, but he said voting is “not a mandate,” and it’s up to individual Georgians to decide whether they want to be registered to vote.
“I’m for those Black people who want to increase our presence at the voting booth; I mean, I want that, too,” King said. “The problem is that our voter rolls become sloppy and susceptible to vulnerabilities where there’s double voting or someone steals your vote, and it happens quite frequently, really too frequently. And I think that’s why there needs to be a heightened focus on voting security.”
King also wants to maximize the use of paper ballots to verify the accuracy of vote counting, something already required by state law.
“I don’t disagree with some sort of technology count, using technology to count the ballots, but it’s always going to be verifiable with hard paper,” King said. “That’s a policy position that I’m very strong on.”
In addition to overseeing elections, the secretary of state’s office is also responsible for granting, renewing, and regulating professional licenses in Georgia. King said he wants to improve the office’s website and customer service, in part, by being more responsive to clients who call during work hours.
“I’ve gotten complaints that [customers] can never reach anyone in the secretary of state’s office, a person, a real person,” King said. “We’re going to fix all that.”
This story has been updated.
Read More:
Why Georgia’s Black Republicans Say Their Numbers Are Growing
Mass Registration Cancellation Puts Black Georgians’ Voting Rights at Risk
