Gabriel Sterling

Robert Gabriel Sterling (born November 14, 1970) is an American politician and elections official from the state of Georgia. He is the chief operating officer (COO) in the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. He previously served on the city council for Sandy Springs, Georgia. Sterling received widespread attention for his speech denouncing false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, stating "someone is going to get shot" if the claims and related harassment continue; weeks later, Ashli Babbitt, a pro-Trump rioter, was shot by police during the January 6 attack. Early life and career Sterling graduated from Riverwood International Charter School in Sandy Springs, and the University of Georgia. He began working in Republican Party politics as a volunteer for Mack Mattingly in his unsuccessful 1986 reelection bid to the U.S. Senate. He served as campaign manager for Charlie Norwood in his successful election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. In 1998, Sterling ran for the Georgia House of Representatives in District 43, facing Dorothy Felton in the Republican Party primary election. Sterling lost the election. Sterling was elected to the Sandy Springs City Council, taking office in 2011. In 2017, he did not run for reelection, and instead ran for the chair's seat on the Fulton County Commission. He finished in third place, behind Robb Pitts and Keisha Waites, both members of the Democratic Party. Georgia Secretary of State's office Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger appointed Sterling the COO of the Secretary of State's office after winning the 2018 election. He became an independent contractor in November 2019, and worked to roll out the use of new voting machines purchased from Dominion Voting Systems for the 2020 Georgia state elections. Sterling held a press conference in which he publicly rejected President Donald Trump's allegations of voter fraud after Joe Biden won Georgia in the 2020 United States presidential election, saying they were "all easily, provably false," and warned that statements by Trump and other leading Republicans would result in innocent people getting killed.