Georgia group founded by Stacey Abrams fined for campaign finance violations

• It's "the largest fine ever imposed" by Georgia's Ethics Commission, the panel executive director David Emaldi said, adding that "it also appears to be the largest ethics fine we've seen by any state ethics commission in the country, related to an election and campaign finance issue."

Zoom in: Abrams' New Georgia Project once was a major organizing force in the swing state of Georgia. She rose to national prominence after losing a close race for governor to Republican Brian Kemp in 2018. Her group's efforts helped Joe Biden win Georgia, and the presidency, two years later.

• But accusations of financial mismanagement and turnover have crippled the New Georgia Project. Abrams is no longer involved with it.
• Georgia's Ethics Commission first issued a complaint against the group in September 2019, based on its spending in hotly contested statewide races and a local public transport referendum.

• In both elections the group spent money trying to persuade voters through its nonprofit, but state officials deemed that under state law its election work should have been done by an independent committee.

Such a committee, similar to a super PAC in a federal election, would have had to regularly file financial disclosure reports unlike a nonprofit, which can keep most of its spending and its donors secret.

• The New Georgia Project fought to keep its bank records private until 2022, when a judge ruled they had to be disclosed.