Secretary of State
Handel was elected Secretary of State of Georgia on November 7, 2006 with over 54 percent of the vote, making her the first elected Republican secretary of state in Georgia's history and the second woman elected secretary of state. The Secretary of State's Office has nearly 500 employees and oversees elections, corporations, securities and professional licensing boards, and also controls the state archives and the Capitol museum.
As secretary of state, Handel defended and implemented Georgia's photo ID law, which requires Georgia voters to show state-issued photo identification prior to casting a ballot in person, and created the agency's first chief investigative officer to pursue elections and consumer fraud.
Handel launched the Transparency in Government Initiative on the Secretary of State's website (www.sos.ga.gov), which displays the yearly budget, monthly spending totals, and Secretary Handel's political contributions and personal financial disclosures.
Handel also implemented verification of citizenship when registering to vote as required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). She defended that implementation in the fall of 2008 in the face of lawsuits from the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education fund (MALDEF). Within weeks of election day, two federal courts sided with Handel and the state of Georgia on the importance of verification and ordered the state to continue the processes through the election. In May 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered Georgia to cease citizenship verification under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act which requires federal approval to any changes in election laws in a number of (primarily southern) states. Continued legal battles over the issue are considered likely.
Read more about this topic: Karen Handel
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