About
Burt Jones is a former Republican state senator (2013–23) in Georgia who helped spread the Big Lie and fraudulently appoint “fake electors” to cast Electoral College votes for Trump despite his 2020 loss in the state.
In 2022, Jones won election as lieutenant governor with Trump’s endorsement and is already presumed to be a likely 2026 candidate for governor. As lieutenant governor, he is adhering to a far-right agenda in scrutinizing the state universities’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs
Prior to his first run for office in 2012, Jones worked with his family’s business, Jones Petroleum, and also founded JP Capital & Insurance, Inc., a risk-management company specializing in retail insurance brokerage.
The Big Lie
- On Dec. 8, 2020, Jones and 15 other Georgia lawmakers signed an amicus brief in the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in several swing states..
- On. Dec. 14, 2020, Jones was at the center of efforts to fraudulently appoint fake electors in Georgia. Robert Sinners, Trump’s campaign director in Georgia, advised fake electors to tell the media and others questioning their presence at the state capitol that day that they had a meeting with either Jones or fellow Republican State Senator Brandon Beach. Jones and others were directed by the Trump campaign to keep their plans secret, likely because the fake electors had no lawful authority to cast electoral votes for Trump.
- On Jan. 5, 2021, Jones was one of more than 80 state legislators to sign a letter to Vice President Mike Pence demanding that he halt the congressional certification of Electoral College votes the next day.
- The week of June 10, 2021, Jones and Beach traveled to Maricopa County, Arizona to tour the facility where the fraudulent Arizona election audit was taking place. (That same week, Jones accepted a ”Warrior” award at Georgia’s Republican Party convention.)
Post-2020 Election Subversion
- In early 2021, Jones co-sponsored two bills dealing with voting machines in Georgia, including one aimed at converting the state’s voting systems to all paper ballots, a popular policy among election deniers and adherents to conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems. Jones has said the state’s Dominion voting machines need to be replaced, and that continuing to pay for the machines is akin to doubling down “on a bad investment.”
- On Aug. 10, 2021, Jones announced his candidacy lieutenant governor, running largely on an election denier platform in the GOP primary.
- In June 2022, a judge determined that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis needed to stop investigating Jones for his role in the fake elector scheme because Willis had made a financial contribution to the campaign of Jones’ opponent, Democrat Charlie Bailey, in the lieutenant governor’s race.