Penny Brown Reynolds, a former judge and senior civil rights official in the Biden administration, prevailed Tuesday in the Democratic runoff to become Georgia’s top elections official, The Associated Press said.
The race for secretary of state has attracted extra attention because the current officeholder, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, defied President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump supporters branded Mr. Raffensperger a “Judas,” and he finished a distant third in last month’s Republican primary for governor.
Georgia Democrats have defended the election system, but they have stressed that the process of choosing new election equipment will likely fall to the next secretary of state, raising the stakes for the general election in November.
Ms. Reynolds, who also served as a lawyer for Roy Barnes, Georgia’s last Democratic governor, defeated Dana Barrett, a commissioner in Fulton County, the state’s largest. Ms. Barrett had called the F.B.I.’s raid in January of the Fulton County election headquarters “a sham.” The F.B.I. was seeking ballots and election materials from 2020.
The last time there was an open seat for secretary of state, in 2018, Mr. Raffensperger edged John Barrow, a Democrat.
