The Republican chair of a rural Georgia election board—which has the power to restrict or expand access to voting, call for audits and investigations into alleged voter fraud, and certify election results—is a QAnon-fixated election conspiracy theorist, The Daily Beast has learned.
Appointed to his position last year, Ben Johnson heads the five-member Spalding County Board of Elections and Registration, which was recently taken over by Republicans as part of broader GOP efforts across the state to secure power over elections. Johnson’s fellow board members know him as a polite and capable chair, even if they sometimes disagree with his conservative politics, current and former colleagues have said….
Logan Strain, a QAnon expert previously known as Travis View and host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, told The Daily Beast that Johnson’s tweets about the conspiracy show a deep involvement in it.
Johnson “was deep into the QAnon community, knew the in-group language, and regularly read the Q Drops,” Strain said after reviewing Johnson’s tweets, adding that the Republican election official has referenced Q drops from as far back as 2018.