Emails obtained by the Guardian reveal a network of election officials operating behind the scenes across the state of Georgia, coordinating policies and messaging to cast doubt on the November election results before a single vote is cast, and to push through rules and procedures favored by the election denial movement.

The emails were obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) as a result of a public records request sent to David Hancock, an election dissenter and member of the Gwinnett County Board of Elections. Crew shared the emails with the Guardian.

The communications span a period beginning in January and reveal the inner workings of a group that includes some of the most ardent supporters of former President Donald Trump’s election lies, as well as ongoing efforts to portray the upcoming election as plagued by fraud. The communications include meeting agendas and efforts to coordinate policy and messaging as the swing state has once again become a focal point of the presidential campaign.

The communications include correspondence from a number of Georgia election deniers, including officials with ties to prominent national groups such as the Tea Party Patriots and the Election Integrity Network, a group led by Cleta Mitchell, a former attorney who served as an informal adviser to the Trump White House during efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The group — which includes election officials from at least five counties — calls itself the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition.

Among the oldest released emails are those relating to a Jan. 30 article published by the United Tea Party of Georgia. The article, headlined “Georgia Democratic Party Threatens Georgia Election Officials,” was posted by an anonymous “admin” for the website and came in response to letters sent to county election officials across Georgia who had recently refused to certify election results.

“In what can only be seen as an attempt to intimidate election officials,” the article began, “the Georgia Democratic Party sent a letter to individual members of the county election board, threatening legal action unless they voted to certify the upcoming election — even if the board member had legitimate concerns about the results.”

The letter was sent by a lawyer for the Georgia Democratic Party to election officials in Spalding, Cobb and DeKalb counties. Election officials in each of those counties had refused to certify the results of the previous November’s local elections. In their letter, the Democrats sought to warn those officials that their duty to certify results was not discretionary in an effort to prevent further denials of certification, including in the upcoming presidential election. In response, the United Tea Party of Georgia took exception to the letter, calling it “troubling” and saying it was “Orwellian to demand that election officials certify an election even when they have unanswered questions about the vote.”

While the author of the article does not appear on the United Tea Party of Georgia website, emails obtained by Crew indicate it was Hancock, an outspoken election denier and member of the Gwinnett County Board of Elections who has become a leading voice in the fight for more power to refuse to certify the results.

“Okay – I finished the article and posted it,” Hancock wrote in an email the same day he published the article.

The email was received by a handful of county election officials who have expressed belief in Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election in 2020, and who have continued to implement policies and push for rules based on the belief that widespread election fraud threatens to result in a Trump loss in Georgia in November. They include Michael Heekin, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Elections who refused to certify the results this year; his colleague Julie Adams, who has refused to certify the results twice this year and works for the prominent national election denial groups Tea Party Patriots and the Election Integrity Network; and Debbie Fisher of Cobb County, Nancy Jester of DeKalb County and Roy McClain of Spalding County — all of whom refused to certify the results last November and who received the letter Hancock objected to.

On February 4, Hancock apparently had not received many responses to his article and re-shared it with the group.

“(No) comment on the Georgia Democratic Party article. I guess it just wasn’t picked up by anyone important,” he wrote in an email to the group at 10:53 p.m. that Sunday night, five minutes later with a link to the article. “I think the message needs to get out, so share it as you feel called.”

Democrats and election experts have cited Georgia lawsuits dating back to 1899 that mandated certification as a “ministerial,” not discretionary, duty of county election officials. At a meeting Monday of state election officials from several swing states, Gabe Sterling, a deputy to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, warned county election officials that they could be sued for refusing to certify results in November.

The communications also show members of the group collaborating on posts about their false claims of widespread voter fraud. Before a December meeting of the group, Adams, using her TeaPartyPatriots.org email address, sent out an agenda that included an item about a “New York Times reporter traveling to several counties in Georgia.” Another agenda noted that the Federalist, a right-wing publication, was looking for “freelance writers (no experience necessary).”

The group has had speakers at its rallies include state election board member Dr. Janice Johnston, an election denialist who smiled and waved at the crowd at Trump’s Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta, where he praised her and two other Republicans on the board as “pit bulls” “fighting to win.” An agenda item also noted that Frank Schneider, an election denialist who has challenged the eligibility of more than 31,000 Georgia voters, would speak at a rally. Other speakers at the group’s rallies include Garland Favorito, perhaps the state’s most prominent election denialist who has consistently pressured the state election board to launch investigations into alleged voter fraud and to implement policies and rules that he and others frequently push. (A separate release of emails obtained by the Guardian shows Favorito planning a July lunch with the chairman of the state elections board, John Fervier, a moderate Republican who voted against recent denial-based rules adopted by his Republican colleagues.)

Another speaker at the rally was Salleigh Grubbs, the chair of the Cobb County Republican Party, who successfully petitioned the state Board of Elections to adopt a rule giving county election officials more power to refuse to certify election results. Amanda Prettyman, an election denialist who spoke about election conspiracies at a 2022 Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections meeting, has also spoken at the group’s meetings, as have Lisa Neisler, an election denialist whose X-profile included a photo of Trump supporters at a Jan. 6 rally before the Capitol attack, and Victoria Cruz, a Republican who ran for a seat on the county commission in May but lost.

The emails support previously released emails showing Hancock working with Johnston on two rules adopted by the state Board of Elections that give county election officials more power to refuse to certify results, as well as ongoing voter purges that Democrats say violate the National Voter Registration Act. The emails also show Hancock’s initial response to a letter from Georgia Democrats warning county election officials like himself that they have a legal duty to certify results.

“If you have a moment, I would really appreciate your thoughts on this incredible letter from a Georgia Democratic Party attorney regarding voting to certify an election,” Hancock wrote to Favorito on Jan. 4. “I guess they’re trying to prepare for the 2024 election? I don’t see how this stands — if the (board of elections) has no choice but to certify an election, why do they have to vote to certify the election?”