FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County's Board of Commissioners approved a new chair for the Board of Elections and Registration (BRE) on Wednesday, appointing a Democrat after Commission Chairman Rob Pitts' nomination of a Republican had stirred up some opposition.
Patrise Perkins-Hooker, an attorney who has served as the Fulton County attorney, been general counsel for Atlanta BeltLine, Inc., and is the current elections board attorney, was approved in a 4-0 vote.
"I look forward to working with all members of the Board of Registration and Elections to make sure that all Fulton County residents have the opportunity to vote and have their votes count. I thank the commissioners for appointing me," Perkins-Hooker said.
Perkins-Hooker has a long and distinguished career in Atlanta, where she graduated from Georgia Tech and then Emory Law. That includes previous service as the president of the State Bar of Georgia.
She was substituted as the nominee Wednesday, after Pitts' nomination of Lee Morris, a Republican who has served on the Board of Commissioners, was met with opposition. Many people who arrived to speak for the public comment period opposed appointing a Republican as chair to the elections board in the strongly Democratic county - the largest jurisdiction in Georgia.
Several speakers also supported him, saying he was a qualified local bureaucrat who would ably fill the ostensibly non-partisan position. The Democratic-leaning commission itself had been split along partisan lines in either opposing or supporting the Morris nomination.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffenspeger was among those to endorse Morris, telling 11Alive before the news about his withdrawal that he's "very fair in what he does" and a "man that lives by the numbers, just like I do."
"Really you have to understand, whenever we are on these boards - people on the left side, on the right side - their job is to walk that line of integrity, to do their job," he said.
Perkins-Hooker will replace the outgoing Cathy Woolard, whose term as chairperson expires on June 30. Perkins-Hooker's term will last from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2025.
After the controversy stirred by his nomination, Morris said in an email read during Wednesday's meeting by Pitts that he did not want to be divisive.
"I understand the belief of so many of my Democratic friends that a Democratic county ought to have a Democratic majority on this BRE - otherwise, the optics as they say aren't good," the letter said. "It is clear that my nomination has become divisive and that my service would continue to be divisive, which is the last thing I want for our county."
Morris said in his letter that he would have "always tried to avoid the hyper-partisanship that has been so destructive in our country and state."
"I thought that kind of nonpartisanship I would bring to the BRE would be productive," the letter said.
Morris, in the letter, formally requested the withdrawal of his nomination.