He joined his local election board because he was concerned about fraud. He found none

Caption

Keith Spitznogle, left, Bryan County Election Board member, and Bryan County Election Board Chairman Andrew Johnson, right, on election night Nov 5, 2024.

Credit: Gillian Goodman / The Current

By Gillian Goodman, The Current

On Tuesday night, wheels of democracy in Bryan County turned quietly and smoothly. In an all-beige room, the election supervisor watched as the tabulated votes were read off a memory card into a small computer.

This is not what Keith Spitznogle imagined when he applied to join the Bryan County Election Board two years ago. 

At that time, Spitznogle still believed debunked claims of election fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election that Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden. He wrongly believed the conspiracy theory that the Dominion voting machines had somehow cheated the former president of victory.

So, Spitznogle, who lives in Richmond Hill, decided to take a closer look from the inside and submitted his resume to the county Republican Party to become involved with local elections.  

“The thing I was most concerned about was that everyone was talking about the Dominion voting being a problem. The whole process that they had in place, their software wasn’t working. These machines weren’t working,” said Spitznogle, who was appointed to the Bryan County Election Board in 2022.

“But once you, once you understand some of the equipment, you see how the process works. I didn’t see any problems with what we had in place,” said Spitznogle. 

Caption

Night outside the Bryan County polling location where votes were tabulated on Nov. 5, 2024.

Credit: Gillian Goodman / The Current

Fox News paid a $787M settlement to Dominion after allegations that it had recklessly made false claims about the voting equipment supplier.  

Spitznogle says his initial views of election integrity weren’t political.

“I just wanted the facts. Give me the facts so I can spread them out to people, and that’s all I was really looking for.” 

And once he saw the facts, everything changed. 

His mistrust with Dominion disappeared when he understood the systems. He was impressed with the intricacy of how they worked and the robust backup processes in place. In Georgia, voters receive a paper ballot and those votes are scanned into a computer.

“When you have the paper ballots still at the bottom of the scanners, you got a complete double system that you can double check if you need to for that audit purpose,” Spitznogle said. “So I just don’t see where their concerns are coming from,” he added, referring to fellow Republicans who still doubt election integrity.

As he watched the votes be quietly tabulated in a cinderblock room, he couldn’t be more pleased to be wrong about fraud. 

“It certainly made me feel good today, how smoothly everything went.  So I’m just happy with the outcome of our workers and what we put together.”

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Current.