Georgia’s state election board will not take over the ongoing election in the state’s most populous county, ending an investigation that had sparked fears of partisan interference.

The board voted unanimously on Tuesday to end Fulton County’s performance review, nearly two years after it began.

Multiple board members said they want the county to continue working on improvements before the 2024 election and not fall back on work already done.

The question is, are we going to draw a line in the sand and say let’s go, done with this, and leave us alone, which is kind of what I’m hearing… or are we going to say is it time to change? said Bill Duffey, chairman of the state’s election board.

Fulton County officials noted that the review panel found no violations of state law or rules in nine elections it audited.

“I am proud of Fulton County’s work and what we have accomplished over the years and I am confident that we are moving into a future that will set the standard for how elections should be conducted here and across the country,” said Cathy Woolard, the outgoing president of the Fulton County Electoral Council.

The report of the election probe in Georgia remains secret for now

A takeover legally required state officials to discover that the county had violated state election law or rules three times in the previous two election cycles and found no violations, or that county officials had committed default, misconduct in two elections in two years or gross negligence.

Had the district administration been removed, the state administration would have appointed a temporary administrator.

The state Electoral Board appointed a three-member panel in August 2021 after Republican lawmakers used a provision of a sweeping electoral law passed earlier that year to request a review of Fulton County’s handling of the election.

The bipartisan review panel found that Fulton County had a history of electoral trouble but also showed significant improvement, with the panel recommending in January that the state

should

not take over.

Former President Trump had targeted the county after losing Georgia by a narrow margin in the November 2020 general election. In calls to state election officials and in public comments, Trump made baseless claims of widespread election fraud in Fulton.

Actions he took while trying to reverse his election loss, including a phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, led Fulton County Dist. attentive Fani Willis to open an ongoing investigation into whether Trump and others illegally interfered in the state’s election.

The criminal investigations into Trump will continue even if he is a candidate

Fulton County encompasses most of the city of Atlanta and is home to approximately 11% of the state’s electorate. A Democratic stronghold, it has long been targeted by Republicans, and Democrats said they feared the 2021 law would be used by Republicans to tamper with how elections were conducted in Democratic-controlled counties across the state.

That hasn’t happened yet, with a member of the state’s electoral board, Republican nominee Matt Mashburn, saying on Tuesday that the talking heads were wrong.

I think the process has been very good and thorough and everyone has taken their time, Mashburn said.

However, most state board members and Fulton County officials said they believe the amount of time unpaid volunteer assessment board members donated was unsustainable, and changes to the process will be needed in the future to make it practical.

A two-year process is really not sustainable,” said board member Sara Tindall Ghazal, a Democratic appointee. “We need something different.

Duffey asked Fulton County to help develop a more collaborative review process in which counties could advise each other.