Candidate Profile: Kelvin King

0:00Welcome to the Georgia Politics Podcast. This is your host, Craig Kidd. It's another primary, another campaign season, and we hear it app in media here at the Georgia Politics Podcast. You're going to do our best to have as many interviews as we can with candidates running up and down the ballot statewide for congressional seats. My colleague, Lindsay Cotes, has already got a couple of interviews in the pipeline up here in North Fulton. My first shot at the campaign season this year is going to be with the Secretary of State, Kidd. Mr. Kelvin King is joining us tonight. Kelvin, how are you? I'm doing great, Craig. Thanks for having me tonight. Our pleasure. I appreciate you coming on. Now, that you're going to be the first husband, wife duo to appear on the history of the Georgia Politics Podcast since Joan and Chris Carr. I had Chris on for a short little step and Joan Carr has been on a couple times. We're talking about her role up in D.C. as a chief of staff to three U.S. Senators.

1:01We did a show about Zell Miller and she came on for that as well. She's a wonderful host. Your wife, Janelle, was on my feminism podcast that came on right after the 24 presidential race, where we talked about the state of feminism in America as a great show. She provided a wealth of information and a quite a perspective. The King family as well is quite welcome here at the New York State Office. Thank you for those nice comments. I know Joan and Chris Carr, they are a power couple. Obviously, he's the attorney general, so if we're mentioning with them, I think that bows well for us as well, but yeah, I kind of joke with people. I say, hey, listen, Janelle and I, we're about one getting one free, so you get two from one with us. Well, I won't interpret that as an endorsement of Attorney General Carr, the governor's race. That's the first rule is he told George and another race, but that's a part of that. Well, that was not an endorsement. No, no, that's all right. So let's focus on you here.

2:02You're running for Secretary of State, a statewide position, the incumbent Brad Raffensberger is retiring. He's running for governor himself. So let's just sort of dive in. I'm going to, I think my audience knows what the Secretary of State's office does. I have a pretty, pretty knowledgeable fan base here, if you will. Let me throw this at you. I would say there's no other position in state government that has changed more in the last 12 years, maybe not changed this in statutorily about what they're doing, but the emphasis, the attention is significantly higher on the Secretary of State's office as it was compared to 2016 or 2014. Let me, let me start you off with a theoretical question. Do you think that's a positive? Do you think that the office of Secretary of State is served well or the people of Georgia are served well by all this attention on a race that, I mean, on an office that let's face it has usually been pretty quiet. Yeah, yeah. Historically, it has been really quiet.

3:04Most people have no idea of the role of the Secretary of State. And I think a couple of reasons, I think there's a couple of reasons why it's going up and notoriety. But first, Georgia has grown a lot over the last 10, 12, 18 years and what have you. And the Secretary of State's office is responsible for business formations, and it's also responsible for business licenses. It has over 42 occupational licenses that are managed through that office. So as Georgia grows, as the economy grows, obviously, there's more involvement with the Secretary of State's office. And the other reason it's probably the most obvious is that elections have become a lot more of a topic nowadays, and they were in the past, particularly since 2018. I think that was really when a lot of attention was paid on our elections, when Stacy Abrams had concerns and challenges with her election outcome.

4:05Let me ask the question this way. You're really kind of thrusting yourself in the limelight here, running for Secretary State now in Georgia is almost like running for the U.S. Senate or more of a powerful federal position. If you win and you become a Secretary of State, you will immediately get interview requests from national, the media and the like, because as you just said, everyone is focused on Georgia's elections and you're going to be the face of that. So let me ask you a question. Out of all the different races you could have run for, why are you throwing yourself into this potential maelstrom? Door. So yeah, my wife's really based on what I was able to learn from my wife's duties on the State Elections Board. She was selected for the State Elections Board a couple of years ago. And when I saw the dysfunction in the Secretary of State's office, and when I saw the lack of support in the Attorney General's office, and when I saw the lack of support out of the Governor's office for the role of the State Elections Board, it calls concern to me.

5:08And it opened my eyes. I was thinking to myself, why isn't the Secretary of State passing along the cases of election irregularities to the State Elections Board? Why are there hundreds of cases of backlog of irregularities cases of backlog that the State Elections Board just hadn't been, you know, hadn't seen? The answer was, it's been intentional. The Secretary of State's office does not share the cases in a timely fashion with the State Elections Board. And now I'm asking why? Why is there so much backlog? Is it incompetence or what? And we're just trying to figure it out. And what I've been able to see is that I think that the office hasn't been performing well. And they've been trying to cover it up. And I wanted to expose it. And you know, as I studied this seat, as I studied the role of the Secretary of State's office, it aligned perfectly with my skill set. I'm a former Air Force officer. I was a contracting officer in Air Force.

6:10Administratively, I'm prepared to handle a role like the Secretary of State's office for a lot of different reasons in terms of procurement, purchasing a new voting system. You know, the Dominion System expires in 2029. I would like to be figure out how to get out of that system without penalty. But regardless, it has to be repecured. And there's no other candidate that has that type of skill set. When it comes to business, there's no other candidate that has a business history like I do. My resume is strong. I'm a licensed general contractor. My company is 13 years old. I started it from scratch in the bedroom of my home. Now I have three offices and three states. And it shows my business acumen. And that's why I want to bring to this seat as well. So it was pretty easy once I thought through, what is it that this office needs and what is it that I can provide? So that's kind of why. That's my why in a very, a very long way explanation. No, that's all right. You definitely made a number of comments there.

7:13Let's focus on the reference burger part for a second. Do you think that, let me phrase it this way? Were previous secretaries of state sort of had the same level of interaction with the cases, or is this a complete change of policy that Secretary Rappensberger had adopted? What did Kathy Cox do? What did Brian Kemp do? What did Karen handle do? Was there a noticeable difference on how Rappensberger ran that particular aspect of it? Well, well, well, what changed was the environment with SB 202 and SB 189 and what it did was to separate the state elections board from the Secretary of State's office and then to remove the Secretary of State as the chairperson over that board. So now the board is its own standalone entity that provides checks and balances over the Secretary of State's office. So that has not been in place before. So with that being said, it exposed a lot of the lack of support from the Secretary of State's office for the State elections board.

8:14That lack of support translates into hindering the State elections board from doing the investigations and the reviews of cases that they're supposed to review. That's why I said that it was a strategy for a backlog of hundreds of cases to build up from the Secretary of State's office that the State elections board had not even seen. So basically, it showed the lack of support from the Secretary of State's office for the State elections board. You had mentioned in your answer that your background is in construction and your career is very impressive. Your company is very impressive. In so many ways, you are living the American dream and that is something I always look for in a candidate. But it's funny, the connection between Secretary of State's office and the construction industry, you know, isn't really obvious to a lot of people. Now, to say that, Raffensberger was an engineer, so there's really not an obvious connection between engineering and the Secretary of State. I mean, you kind of set it a little bit there, but how do you sell yourself?

9:18What's the connection between being in construction and being a good administrator, because we'll get to this in a second, the Secretary of State's office is an administrative one. It's not really a policy setting one per se. Correct. How do you make that connection between construction and being an SOS? I talk about that all the time. The top three roles in our state, the most powerful seats are Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State, but Secretary of State is similar to Governor and very dissimilar to Lieutenant Governor. Lieutenant Governor is a legislative role. Secretary of State is an executive role or administrative role, as you said. So with that being the case, there's a lot of power that's wielded in that particular office. So administratively, you have to make sure that you follow the rules, follow the laws administratively, and make sure that the office doesn't become bloated and bureaucratic.

10:19And that's what I'm very skilled at. So like I mentioned earlier, my background has a government official in terms of government contracting. That's the only authorized role in government that could spend your tax dollars as a contracting officer. I've gone through training and education on contractual law, procurements, RFBs. That world I know very well. And it's a very important world in the SOS office because that world introduced me to the construction world. The construction world obviously is very administrative. The licenses, the licensing is hailed and managed through the Secretary of State's office. So that is a microcosm of the second responsibility of the Secretary of State's office. The first responsibility is elections. The second responsibility is businesses, licenses and formations, and then, lastly, securities. So that falls very well in being able to administer the licensing division and improve it.

11:21In fact, I got phone calls from lots of people. I have over 300 subcontractors under my contracts. So I have a lot of businesses across the state that I have relationships with. And when I announced that I was running for Secretary of State, my first few phone calls were from companies complaining about the lack of service that they've been receiving from the Secretary of State's office. They complain that they can't get a human on the phone. They can't get a phone call back. The website is difficult to navigate and that it takes too long for the licensing decisions to be made. Like all of these complaints were being made to me. And you know, that basically told me that, hmm, I do have a charge here. I've got to fix this office and make it more customer friendly because, hey, I get my license through the Secretary of State's office too and I don't want to be held up. So I have some unique skills that no other candidate has in this race. I'm the only candidate with a real business with employees. I'm the only candidate that serve proudly in the U.S. Air Force, our military. I'm the only candidate that has campaign across the state of Georgia.

12:22I've actually campaigned in every county in the state. So I have a lot of it. You've already been to all 159? I did that in my U.S. Senate race and I'm redoing it right now. I'm not going to hit all 159 counties in a month like I did on my Senate race. Well, that's why I stopped you. I said, man, if you've already done that, that's pretty much it. But I create a lot of good will across the state of Georgia and many counties and we've organized all the counties. So I have support in every county. So that is an advantage that I have in this race and no other candidate has. Well, now you've intrigued me. So when did you go to Eccles County? Now for our listeners out there, Eccles County is the reason why we don't have Milton County in North Fulton. This is a county down in Southeast Georgia. It's next to Wake Cross. It's next to the Oki-Fanoki Swap. No one lives there. There are no cities in Eccles County. There is nothing there. So when did you go to Eccles? You've got me intrigued now.

13:22Believe it or not, we were just down in Wake Cross about two months ago, right before the holidays. Okay. But it was August of 2021, I hit every county. So Eccles was actually visited by me then for sure. And this past, I can't even remember if it was December or November, but we drove through there in Appling and Wake Cross and I've tried to get out of my counties across South Georgia. Yeah. I did. You used to live in Fulton County. You might still live in Fulton County. I apologize for not knowing that and I always like to point out that the existence of Eccles County is one of the reasons why we don't have Milton County in North of the River in Fulton, a county completely owned by Georgia Pacific because there's nothing there but trees. But that's an entirely different show. One thing I do appreciate about your campaign from the limited way that's seen is you are willing to talk about the other aspects of the Secretary of State's office other than elections.

14:22You just did. And quite passionately you are aware that there is a corporate division of securities division of professional licensing boards division with 42 different licensing boards. And you're right, in my day job, I go to these Secretary of State's webpage practically every day. I look up a contractor's license practically every day. I write, write, write to repair letters for living in two a degree. So I appreciate the last bit, but you basically said you want to make a customer or more customer service friendly. Yes. How are you going to do that? Because as a Republican, you know the difficulty of fighting a bureaucracy if that's the problem. Well, how are you going to fix it? That's what I'm trying to dismantle right now. It's actually become a bureaucracy. That's what all the complaints have become a common front. It's because they have difficulty working through the Secretary of State's office. In fact, one gentleman, his daughter had a degree or has a degree from a esteemed massage therapy school.

15:24And she's she had been waiting months and months for the Secretary of State's office to recognize her degree. And she finally was fed up and she left Georgia and went to Chattanooga to get to open up her practice. And that's exactly the opposite of what we want. We want to make sure that Georgia is truly the number one state to do business in and not the bottom five like we are when it comes to red tape and bureaucracy. So with that with that charge, I want to make sure that any time a business calls the Secretary of State's office or goes our website, they can get help. So what I'm going to implement is industry liaisons. I'm not implementing attorneys or anyone giving advice to business owners. But what I am going to implement is people that actually have a understanding of the industry and know how and can point them in the right direction. Businesses are really hard. I've done it. My, you know, my, I guess the last 13, 14 years, let's not make it more difficult. Let's not make it a bureaucracy that makes business more difficult in Georgia.

16:25So that is one of my solutions to make sure that the citizens that are supported from this office and that they're supported with know how. So it's not a lot of hiring that I have to do. For instance, my industry is infrastructure. Well, there's several licenses under that. So there, there would be an infrastructure liaison that could help guide people when they call to, when they called office. As you mentioned a little bit earlier that you became, most people became aware of you when you ran for the US Senate a couple of years ago for the, for the Republican nomination. You ran against President Trump's hand pick candidate, Herschel Walker, and you won the respect of a lot of people who saw the courage that that took. This is kind of a pedestrian kind of question. Almost that sounds like something a high schooler would ask. So I apologize ahead of time, but maybe, maybe you got a good creative answer in there. What's the difference between running for the US Senate versus running for Secretary of State?

17:26What is the practical impact on a day-to-day campaign from being at the top of the ballot? Now you're midway down the ballot. Yeah. How are you seeing that difference? It's different, but I was a new candidate when I ran for Senate too, so everything was new for me then. Being at the top of the ticket does bring a little bit more notoriety. People want to invite you to place this first and foremost. They want you to be around them and part of their, part of their events. Secretary of State is a little bit different. You know, it's the middle of the ticket. Most Georgians in my, in my opinion, don't know the full role of the Secretary of State's office. Not a lot of notoriety, but when I speak to crowds and speak to audiences, one thing that they are aware of is that the Secretary of State's office is responsible for our elections. So right now, elections is top of mind, but when I explain, you know, the business licensing and the formations and the securities, man, they know their eyes are wide open because

18:29they weren't aware just how influential it is. I say that this race, Craig, is the most consequential race of the 2026 cycle to citizens in Georgia because it hits them directly, more directly than any of the other roles. It hits you directly with your right to vote. It hits you directly with your right to earn a living, businesses and formations and licensing. And it hits you directly with where we all want to end up being. We want to have a lot of money in our retirement and have that money there for whatever we need to pull it out. So securities and making sure that there's no Ponzi schemes that people aren't fleecing you out of your money. That's the Secretary of State's role. Now, look forward to administering that role because it's a protector role. You know, being a military officer, we know what protecting America means or protecting our country. The SOS's role is a protector's role for the citizens of Georgia. I think a lot of people recognize that that role that the SOS has in terms of securities,

19:31as you mentioned with the Ponzi schemes, there's certainly been one noteworthy one in the last several months, especially among political circles. It probably would do you too much good to delve deeper into that. So I'll save you that. I don't want to delve into that situation, but what I can share with you about that situation, regardless of what you think about the owners of the company and the Ponzi scheme. The ball was dropped with the Secretary of State's office because it's their responsibility to review these licenses, is their responsibility to administer and protect citizens of Georgia using the Georgia Securities Act, but the Secretary of State had not reviewed the licensing of that company in over a decade, in over 10 years, they hadn't had a review from the Secretary of State's office. So you tell me who's dropping the ball is the office well run? No, of course not. That's what I say is a dereliction of duty and they dropped the ball there and that's just one example of where we need to improve the Secretary of State's office.

20:34That's sort of throwing it on its head because supporters or at least hyper critics of Brad Rathman's burger are going after him for now, going after that particular individual in that Ponzi scheme. You're kind of looking at it from the other angle, saying they should have been aware of it five, six years ago. Well, I mean, that's the truth. I mean, the truth is it was their responsibility. They would have caught this company if they had done their regulatory requirements. Now I can't speak why Rathman's burger wants to go after him. I think it may have to do with, you know, trying to cover up his mistakes or his errors, you know, people often do that when they want to clean up a mistake that they made. But you know, maybe you could ask him why does he take so long to go after this company when he could have done it eight years ago? What are fundraising numbers have been impressive? What is the difference in fundraising between an SOS race and the US Senate besides the obvious? Do you find yourself limited so to speak in terms of reaching out only to Georgia interests

21:40as opposed to people who were following the Senate race in Wisconsin or in North Dakota, for example, does that make it easier or is it harder? I mean, I think it's definitely more challenging to fundraise for a seat that's not the top of the ticket because most people don't know about this race. So, you know, you've got to work a little bit harder to fundraise. I inject a good amount of money into my race to understanding that fact because at the end of the day, we need to change leadership. This office is not a well performing office. We are in a crisis situation, Craig. Do you know, when I ask people, if they are confident that their votes in 2020, and their vote in 2022 and 2024 accounted, very rarely do I see a majority of the room raise their hands. To me, that's a crisis. That's sad to live in a free America and, you know, Georgia,

22:41I mean, America is the standard of fair, free, honest elections. And we have a large electorate that don't have the confidence in our election process. Regardless of why the situation occurred, it's here. And it's here because the Secretary of State's office has not been strong enough and influential enough to address that need. So now, change is required. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make sure that the people of Georgia are confident in certain of their vote counted. Let's talk about that loss and trust aspect for a second. Because I think in its core, it sort of defines the issue of who exactly is being asked that question. Let me put a theory out there. You can disagree with it if you will. And if you can certainly accuse me of cherry-picking polling, go right ahead. I sort of see a lot of the election issues, the questions of the voting machines and the like is what I call a 5% issue.

23:445% of the public care is about it. 5% is completely rabid about it in one way or the other. You and I are both veterans of an innumerable number of GOP breakfasts and conventions where you might have asked that question of the groups about how many or if a confident in their elections and nobody in a GOP breakfast is going to raise their hand. But I mean, there has been polling out there that has shown that the vast majority of Georgia voters do have favor the current election system that they do feel trust in it. Again, accuse me of cherry-picking picking, but quickly I was able to pull up an AJC poll in January of 23, 73% of registered voters were confident of our system. A poll in March of 2024 by the Secure Elections Project found 71% of GOP Republicans felt that they were confident in their voting. Is this an issue that is truly a 5% issue that only those who go to the GOP state convention

24:46really care about? But John Cue citizen who shows up and let's say voted for Brian Kemp and the primary two, four years ago against David Perdue, they didn't really, that's not an issue that they care about. Are we just really just talking to the hyper base here when we talk about this issue? Yeah, I don't think so at all. I don't think it's possible because there's people who aren't even Republicans that tell me that they don't trust our elections. I think that the hyper partisan people are the loudest in the room, but they're loud because they have a reason. So first, let me explain something to your listeners. A lot of people are concerned about our elections because we currently don't follow the law in Georgia. And most people are like, well, you won't talk about this crazy, Kelvin. We obviously follow the law. We have lawmakers and we don't want to break the law. Well, the law currently requires this, that every voter must be able to verify their vote on paper before it's tabulated. That is the law.

25:47Right now we can't do that. So we're currently breaking the law the way we vote because when we walk into a precinct to vote, we show our ID, they check us to make sure that we're a register and qualified voter that give us a little white card that we put inside of a ballot marking device. It's a screen that pops up and your ballot pops up and you select who you want to vote for. You have the Secretary of State's office there and hopefully your listeners will vote for Kelvin King. And then you hit print, and then you hit print ballot on that screen. Then your ballot comes out, right? And then that's when the poll workers normally says, hey, look at this. Make sure it, you know, make sure it reads the way you, you intended it because there is text on that ballot that shows who you voted for and it should match who you voted for. And then when you slide that, that shoot a paper into the scanner. And when the poll worker says, once they click happens, that means your vote is counted. What is that scanner reading? That scanner is reading the QR code, not the text on your paper, on your paper ballot.

26:51So we can't, and we don't, we don't verify our vote currently because the scanner reads the QR code and there's no human that I know that could read a QR code. So I just want us to get in compliance with the law because there have been problems with outcomes of elections for that very reason in 2022. You may know this one, create Michelle Long Spears. It was a Bicap County election. Yeah. She got zero election day votes. She challenged it because she said, way, I had to vote for myself. They found out that the coding behind the QR code was incorrect. So she got zero election day votes came in third place after they, after a hand recount was done, she got first place. So that shows right now that we are not in compliance with the law of Georgia. So when these people are our rate about our elections in Georgia, they have the right to be like we currently don't comply. The QR code was supposed to be removed.

27:51In fact, in 2024, they, the General Assembly said it should be removed and they gave a two-year window. So July of 2026, the QR codes are supposed to be removed, create. And you and I both know that there are not prepared to be removed. So we're not even following the law that the lawmakers made for themselves. That's why people are irritated and they have a right to be concerned and irritated because they're being told one thing in the news and by our lawmakers and then the lawmakers in the news, they end up doing something else. And we're caught in the middle as citizens. So I don't think anyone, Republican or Democrat, would be okay with being told one thing and something else being done. So we're going to fix that when I'm Secretary of State. A couple years ago, Senate bill 202 was the talk of the election season. And frankly, I think it was a victory for Republicans. We took a lot of fire. We took a lot of flame from national Democrats all the way down to Georgia Democrats.

28:53We talked about it on the show. And sesame at the time years ago with my Democratic colleagues, I took particular ombridge of being called a George Wallace supporter or akin to George Wallace by the president of the United States. I, you know, Jim Crow 2.0, I felt particularly very insulted by that, especially coming from the former president, who is the only person I know who actually went to Alabama to seek George Wallace's support when he ran for president back in 1988, but that's a different podcast. Right. So let me frame the question this way, polling after SB 202 was very positive. The AJC ran a poll saying that fundamentally people didn't have a problem with the changes that SB 202 instituted. They even had a stat in there, focusing on African-American voters and they could not find a single African-American voter, not 0%, a raw number of zero who said things were more difficult after SB 202. They were shocked. Right. Blue Sting was shocked.

29:53They couldn't find anybody. So I guess my question to you is, with all the talk about the machines, are we cutting our nose despite our face that we're losing the value of the victory that we won with SB 202? We made a system that was tighter, more reliable. The voter saw it that way, but now we're telling them incessantly, no. Your vote is just as unsafe as it is in some three-bit, three-backwater country. What's the mixed message here? Yeah. I don't think it's mixed. I think the media may try to mix it up, but the message is not mixed at all. I think SB 202 was great. It was the right time. It was a good law at the right time. I mean, I've done commercials for it. So my issue with SB 202 is that, let's actually do what the law says. When you separate the state elections board, make sure that they can stand on their own two feet. Make sure they're funded properly. Make sure that they have the proper investigations, or investigate horrors, and make sure they

30:53have a website. I mean, these are basic fundamentals that should have been put in place by SB 202. So just execute SB 202. Make sure that the state elections board really and truly is a standalone agency that could provide oversight over the Secretary of State's office. So yeah, when I hear people who are disgruntled about our elections, it's not really speaking negatively of SB 202. I think most people say he probably didn't go far enough because now we're seeing the truth. I mean, if you don't know about election irregularities, of course, you can just believe what you hear or what you read in the media. But when these things are being disclosed, Craig, when we're seeing people from Bahamas who are not citizens, but voting 23 to 25 times in our elections, we know that that's a problem. And those are the issues that come up in the state election board meetings that aren't

31:54being reported by the media. So AJC is doing a disservice if they're not reporting all their irregularities. That's happened in 2022 and 2024 in our elections. We don't have clean elections. Regardless of what your polls say, the truth happens in these SB meetings, these board meetings where people, citizens are coming up in front of this board and making their case. I ask you this question because you are the first candidate, statewide candidate, to have signs up in my hometown of Johns Creek. I took a picture of it. I violate, I broke the law. I took a picture of one of your signs while driving past it on the way to pick up my daughter from ballet and I sent it to your wife and said, hey, I see some Kelvin King signs here in the great city of Johns Creek. So I ask you this, I ask you this question in that spirit, down ballot, governor's race is spending a lot of money, Rick Jackson is spending a lot of money. He's sucking up every TV time he can.

32:54How are you reaching the voters down ballot? How are you differentiating yourself from Gabe Sterling, Vernon Jones, Tim Fleming? What's the secret? What's the method to running when Rick Jackson is on every second? Is it good old fashion? Signs in Johns Creek on the side of the road because some people have said that's how Brad Rappensberger won in 2018, he's spent a lot of money on big signs putting him on highways down in Eatonton and in Videlli and towns and most of my listeners have never heard of. How are you going to break out? The answer is yes. How are they about? How are they about? How are they about? Sure. So of course we're doing signs and we're putting up our signs strategically. Of course we're doing, we have a commercial out now. I don't know if you've seen it or not, but actually my wife and my daughter saw it on HGTV and they said, aren't they, isn't that the guy you're going to interview coming up? Yes, it was. I didn't see it, but they remembered your name so they worked and so we're doing that. We're doing door knocking. We have a field, a field team, a grassroots field team that's ready to really hit the

34:00canvas. My good will that I made when I ran for U.S. Senate is still paying off. We have people to make dials, we have, they call campaign calls and phone banking. So we're hitting different angles, but at the end of the day, I think what's going to really make the biggest difference is direct voter contact is going to be our phone calls, it's going to be our commercials and it's going to be the events that we go to and we convince people. For instance, front line is a, is a, is a, is a, is a pack that focuses on life. It's a pro life pack and they get involved with a lot of Republican entries and Republican races. Well, over the weekend, I had a forum with one of my opponents, Mr. Sterling, you mentioned his name and the outcome of that was I won the straw poll, 77%.

35:02So that was pretty extreme, but it shows that the people are tired of being told, everything is okay, move along, there's nothing to see here. Our elections are perfect when we know that they are not and they just want someone that's going to be honest with them, Craig, and tell the truth. I don't have all the answers, of course not. So I have an answer to our voting situation. I have an answer to make sure that people read their trust in our voting process comes back because I'm going to implement hand-marked paper ballots as the Secretary of State. I'm going to implement a hand count to certify our elections. Now, we're going to do machine tabulations just like normal, so we'll have election night results, but there's a week to certify. You're going to make sure every, I mean, every precinct is going to make sure that they hand count and verify their numbers before they certify the election. And that's going to bring trust back into our election process, and that's going to meet

36:08the spirit of the law, currently we're breaking the law and we've got to abide by the law. My solution will do both. There was a special election in the Macon area, that's the Senate district, that was in a district 19 that now said or McNeil won, and there was an incident on election night where the individual carrying the votes, I guess it was a voting cards, it would have you from Peach County, hit a deer, and none of the Peach County votes got recorded until very late at night. And there were some people on Twitter and on other social media's laughing saying, hey, we actually had hand-marked paper ballots instead of machine ballots, we could be in a world of hurting because who knows where these ballots are. It was, it was, it was happened just, but I'm a political historian. I'm somebody who has done great study on political machines. I'm somebody who knows some of the tricks employed to make certain ballots disappear

37:08and reappear quite different from how they were originally cast. If we switch back to purely a hand system, are we inviting a level of fraud that, honestly, most people have forgotten because political machines and that kind of fraud have been dead for, that's at least three generations, what, what do you think about that potential for old, how many hall coming back? Right, right. I can't, I understand the concerns, but I mean, we don't have a system that works currently. So there's fraud happening right now. At least with a hand-marked paper ballots, we fulfill the spirit of the law. We don't, we don't fulfill the spirit of the law right now. So when we talk about machines, we need to make sure that they, that they abide by the law, the spirit of the law. We had irregular outcomes, I just gave you an example with DeCab County. I mean, we can go more recent in 2024, in Hall County with the City of Oakwood and the

38:10City of Oakwood, they conducted an election where 600 people received the wrong ballot. They weren't authorized to vote for that particular election. 300 people voted in that election, and the outcome, the delta between first place and second place was 88 votes. So you tell me, Craig, who won that election? Like nobody knows, but get this, this is, this is the, the their election in the secretary of state's office of their duty. The county election office, they raised their hand and said, hey, there's a problem with this election. We think it needs to be redone. They made a note and they sent it to the secretary of state's office, their, their, their certification package. The secretary of state's office says, certify anyway. Now that didn't sit well with the county election office officials. So what they did was they went to their only resource and only recourse, and that was the state elections board. They presented everything that happened, all the details of what happened, and they explained that the state, that the secretary of state's office said to certify anyway.

39:13They were uncomfortable with that. That's why they wrote a note that said, we don't think this was a good election. Now this was done on the machines, right? And the secretary of state's office dropped the ball, and we don't know who won. So, so, so you tell me, what's the better outcome when nobody has a clue what happened? Or when at least when we're hand counting, and something doesn't come up right, we can always go back and search the original source document, and we can do a recount. That's the issue that we have in Georgia is that we've got to regenerate trust. People don't trust because we're not being told the truth. I'm going to ask you a very tough question, and then I'm going to follow you over the easy one. All right. It's, it's only tough because it might put you on the spot, and then, you know, if you want to have fun with it, go right ahead. You have three primary opponents, Gabe Sterling, Vernon Jones, Tim Fleming, and, and I got a Ted Metz.

40:14The Ted Metz qualifying? You just qualify. Yeah. I apologize, former libertarian, right, if my memory, yes, that's right. Give me one word to describe each one of your, of your primary opponents. What's, what's one word that comes to mind when you think of Vernon Jones? Um, snake oil salesman, okay, this trust, okay. How about Tim Fleming? Um, checklist, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a good word. That's a strong word. How about Gabe, Gabe Sterling? Um, also, man, you know, you remember the, oh, comedy, uh, I think it was like Martin, there's a guy we call, never knew what he did, but he always was able to hustle. But some reason, Gabe Sterling, he's able to get, he's able to get a job at the SOS office, he's able to leave that job and get a contract for $200,000 to implement the, the menu system, and then he was able to get another job after he implemented the menu system as a contractor

41:17with the Secretary of State's office as the, the Chief Operating Officer. And now he's trying to become the Secretary of State, I mean, it's just, it's just strange because he hasn't shown effectiveness or even success in any of the previous roles. I'm, I won't ask you about Ted Metz, because I didn't even know he was running, so that wouldn't even be fair. Um, problem. You are a graduate of the Air Force Academy. Yes. You're, you're, you're an Academy man. Um, you played football for Air Force. I did. What position did you play? I was a defensive back. I played pre-safety in corner. That was a three year, three year starter in all conference. What, um, my brother is, is a West corner, uh, class of 1992. So service academy graduates always mean something special to me. Um, if I have an interesting question, I don't, maybe this would be the one question no ones ever asked you, um, how do Air Force football players react when so much attention is spent is put on the Army Navy game.

42:18But never there's no Air Force Navy game. You guys must get a little checked off with all the attention it gets. It's the truth. You're right. We, our, our games don't get the same pump and circumstance as the Army Navy game. But I mean, it's the oldest, you know, it's the oldest rivalry of the service academies. We get it. Um, it was, it's typically not a big deal because we normally beat Army and Navy. Uh, well, you're on a good run there for a while. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we, we never lost Army when I was in college and we only lost the Navy once. But you know, we don't, we don't feel upset. I mean, that's just our, those are our brothers over there in Army and Navy. Yeah. We, we've missed the best for them until they play us, obviously. Sure. So, I mean, we, I mean, we, we played in a, a, a larger conference than they do. We, we get more, more airtime than they do. I mean, I think we have better athletes than they do. So I mean, it's okay. We're not jealous. We're a better man than I am. I'd be really pissed off at all the attacks that Army Navy gets.

43:19Um, we're good. Uh, testing your memory a little bit. Um, some of my listeners may not know you have to get a congressional appointment to attend a service academy or something similar to that. Who, who appointed you? Um, yeah. So this was, I graduated high school in 92. So I got my appointment then and it was from George Buddy Darden and I grew up in County County. So I was a couple broke high school and that was the, uh, the local congressperson to give me my, my appointment. Sure. No, I, I, I know Buddy Darden's career quite well. In fact, uh, Bob Barr, not my, not my appointment. You want to get a appointment to the academy? Sure. They, they give you a recommendation. The, uh, I, I've had Bob Barr on my show a couple of times and we've talked about his race against Buddy Darden in, in, in 1994 and, and, and the like and he has a very high opinion of, of Buddy Darden, I certainly remember him as well. My brother, um, uh, got his appointment from, uh, Congressman Pat Swindle, who was then later in, in, in Dited for a series and convicted for serious things.

44:21So at least, at least your history is a little bit better there. Let me ask you a tough question, but it kind of ties into my previous shows and, you know, your wife appeared on, uh, on a show about the state of feminism. Um, I did a show last year marking the 50th anniversary of women being accepted into the service academies. Uh, I had a guest on Colonel Brasshaw who, uh, wrote a book about her experience of being in the first graduating class of, of women at West Point and she was a wonderful guest. What was your, you know, I guess what it would have been approximately a little under 25 years later? What was your sort of, how did women, uh, uh, uh, cadets at, uh, at, at, at Air Force kind of intermixed with, with, with the men? Was there still a, not a segregated system? But, you know, how, how were they managing for lack of a better term? That sounds condescending and I apologize, but I can't think of another word for it. What was the interactions like? Yeah, I think the interactions were healthy. Um, there were, there were, you know, I don't think that the women who I graduated, I graduated

45:21with felt like, you know, we treated them, um, lesser than the, uh, the, the male cadets. Uh, in fact, I mean, one of my classmates, her name is Nicole and she was the first female Thunderbird pilot. Um, so, so there's women in my class that did some pretty amazing things and I respect every woman that was, that was in my class. That's done those amazing things. So yeah, there, there's really no, no concern when it comes to, to gender, uh, we know we treated them. We treated them. I mean, if they couldn't make the run, obviously, we'd have an issue with it, but we didn't do the same thing with a guy who couldn't make the run. Sure. So, um, as long as you can fulfill the, the physical requirements and that's one thing that's, you know, since you pointed out, I do think that physical requirements should be, physical requirements, period, they shouldn't be different requirements for different genders. I know the procurements, not the right word. So I apologize, but you went into procurement. Yes. That's you graduated. What word, what word did you use? It's not for contracting contact. Contact the caucus.

46:22Thank you. Okay. I knew procurement wasn't the word, but it was what popped into my brain. Um, no, no interest in taking more of a combat role going in, in, in that direction, right? Um, actually, I did not want to fly, um, so most people who graduated from the academy, you know, that's their dream is to fly. Sure. Um, so without fly, I mean, the, in an air force is a little bit different than the Army and Navy. Like, there's, you know, flying is our combat role. Right. Sure. So, so outside of that, I wanted something that was significant, something that was business oriented. Yeah. I was interested in either acquisitions or contracting or finance, um, my, you know, I just wanted to business oriented job and I was able to get, um, my choice as, as contract. I didn't know what it was, but now I know how important it is. Like I said, in this road, a secretary of state, my background as a contracting officer, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm having shoulders above any of my competitors when it comes to understanding

47:23the role of government and, and, and the tools that we can use to acquire and obtain things. And the biggest acquisition that any candidate that's running in this race is going to have is a new voting system, regardless if we go to a machine system or if we do a paper system, there's going to have to be a repercurement of somewhat. And I'm the only person that is qualified to do anything near a repercurement. So as, as we wind down here, Kelvin, I'm going to ask you two questions that I ask all of my guests. I did not ask, you know, this, the form didn't, didn't allow for it. Um, you and I are about the same age. So I'm intrigued by this, by this question that I'm going to pose to you, but your first political memory, first political memory, yeah, um, probably Reagan getting shot. You and I are, I, I remember a Jimmy Carter press conference, but I don't remember what it was about at all. So that's an asterisk, but if someone asked me, I would say my first real memory was Reagan getting shot as, as well.

48:24Where were you? Yeah. Um, I would have been about, what, you would have been about seven, uh, seven. I was born in 74. Yeah. So was I, uh, I was born in 74, yeah, I had to be at home watching TV, um, in the news, my, you know, my, my, my mom and, um, was my dad around then, my dad left while I was about 10. So I guess he was still around then. Yeah. They watched news and that's probably where it was. Yeah. I was living in Pennsylvania at the time. And I clearly remember my dad calling my mom and telling her to turn on the television that Reagan had got shot. What's your favorite political movie? Um, favorite political stuff. Mm. There's a comedy that I really like. It's a political comedy and they make fun of the whole campaigning process and I can't think of the name right now. The real Farrell movie. No, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.

49:28Oh, my goodness. Okay, let me think of another one then, uh, uh, but that was definitely one of my favorite favorite political movies. It wasn't Bob Roberts. Was it with Tim Robbins? I don't think so. Okay. It's like a documentary comedy. It is so good, dude. I'll have to tell, you'll have to tell me that one later. I'll think of it in a little while. Okay, appreciate it. Yeah, that's the question I ask everybody and I get a wide assortment of answers, usually depending on the age. Sure you do. I'm not a political. I didn't like dream of running for office my whole life. I didn't go and work on campaigns as a young man I was pulled into this role. I was called into this seat because when I saw that this seat had no leadership and that the people of Georgia were just being pulled away, pulled apart from each other because of misinformation, lack of information,

50:32you know, a degree of ignorance of our voting process. I don't think a single person in Georgia, or the average person in Georgia can tell you what happens with their vote when they go vote. That is a shame, Craig. When you sit back tonight and when you think about that statement, the people need to know what happens to their paperwork or their vote when they vote. That means our system is way more complicated than it should be. And if it's that complicated, we gotta unwind the complexity. So people, the average voter knows what happens with their ballot when they fill it out and when they cast it. Well, I'm not known. I think that's a perfect time to end the interview. I want to thank you for coming on, Calvin. We went a little bit longer than I had promised you, but I think it was well worth it for both of us. You're a wonderful interview. I do appreciate that and I do appreciate your time. I'm gonna make a prediction. I'm gonna say there will be a runoff. If, you know, when you're one of the two candidates in the runoff, if you want to come back

51:32and talk about how the race has changed in this runoff, you were cordially invited. But again, I wish you luck on the campaign trail. We're only what two months away from the primary is gonna be here before we know it. People keep saying, it's too early for this. I go, no, it's not. We're only a freaking couple of months away. Everyone always just voted. Hey, early voting starts next month. Yeah, that's depressing. Yeah, so please, so for your list, please go to kelvinking.com, that's K-E-L-V-I-N-K-I-N-G dot com to follow us. If you want to volunteer, if you want to contribute to our campaign, or if you just have a question that you won't answer, I will answer your questions. And later on this month, I actually have a forum where I'm gonna be conducting a, it's kind of like an all hands meeting where we're gonna have an opportunity for people to ask whatever questions they have with me. And it's just an open book. It's gonna be a virtual town hall. All right, well, ladies and gentlemen,

52:33please, if you're interested, please go to his web page and track down that information so you can attend that town hall, that virtual town hall. Kelvin, I wanna thank you again. And ladies and gentlemen, in the audience, I hope you enjoyed this interview. We're gonna be doing a lot of them. Kelvin is gonna hopefully be the first of many. And hopefully we'll have him back when maybe when he's secretary of state or making that runoff. So ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Hans Appen, our publisher, I hope everybody has a good night and a good rest of the week. Thank you very much. Bye.