Democrat Penny Brown Reynolds wins Georgia secretary of state race, flipping office for first time in 20 years

Former Fulton County State Court Judge Penny Brown Reynolds will be Georgia's first Democratic secretary of state in nearly 20 years, CBS News projects.

Reynolds defeated state Rep. Tim Fleming to succeed Brad Raffensperger, who chose to run in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

Reynolds served as executive counsel to former Democratic Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, who endorsed her candidacy. In 2022, she was appointed by the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She has also served in other state and federal roles. 

Outside of politics, her reality TV show, "Family Court with Judge Penny," ran for one season and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2009.

Reynolds' victory breaks a streak of Republican election leaders in the Peach State. The most recent Democrat to hold the position was Lera Catharine Cox, who lost to Karen Handle in the 2006 midterms.

The Democratic candidate's election win comes at a time when lawmakers are attempting to figure out how votes should be counted in future elections.

Georgia's touch-screen voting machines print a paper ballot that includes a human-readable list of voters' selections and a QR code that a scanner reads to count votes. Lawmakers two years ago passed a law saying QR codes could not be used for the official vote count after July 1 of this year. That was then extended to January 2027 after a special session created a committee that would examine the requirements needed for a new system. 

The committee is required to make its recommendations by Jan. 31, 2027, so that the new system can be implemented by the 2028 election cycle, a process that Reynolds would help spearhead.

During the campaign, Reynolds emphasized expanding early voting sites and absentee ballot access and challenged claims that the state's elections were unsecure.