While everybody was losing their minds that @GaSecofState was meeting minimum standards of his job, I forgot to tell y’all a wild-ass story about a *different* GA Secretary of State, fighting a contested election with a whole other pack of racist honking geese!

BEN FORTSON 🍑🧵

Ben Fortson was the longest-serving SecState in GA history. TEN governors he served with (90% of whom were total shitbirds, Jimmy Carter being the reliable exception).

I’m not trying to rehab the reputations of old-timey segregationists here, but Ben Fortson was a BAMF.

I’m going to tell you a story from the late 1940’s, but the background history you need to know is this:

Georgia did not always elect a Lt. Gov, but in 1946, the state figured there ought to be a backup.

(Of note, Gov/Lt Gov are still elected independently. Not a ticket race.)

So! 1946, Georgia elects a new Governor— Eugene Talmadge. And also elected the state’s very first Lt. Gov as well; a dude named Melvin Thompson.

Talmadge was a thoroughbred shit, and I’ll hear no arguments otherwise.

He died in December 1946, before he could take office.

The legal protocol would seem clear to us today— newly-elected Lt. Gov Melvin Thompson gets sworn in as Governor, right? Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

But this is Georgia.

So you know these chicken lip politicians are going to make it difficult difficult, lemon difficult.