Athens Republican Brian Kemp wants to be an ambassador for the state of Georgia, and he thinks becoming the next Secretary of State will help him to do that.

Kemp, a former state senator and now owner of Kemp Properties in Athens, visited Wednesday with a small group of Rome business leaders and professionals at the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce.

Kemp said the Secretary of State’s Office is being run very efficiently, but he “wants to take it to the next level.” That next level, according to Kemp, would be close involvement with other state agencies to help reinvigorate business in Georgia.

“We need everybody pulling in the same direction for job growth,” he said. Kemp supports creation of a blue ribbon panel to assist small businesses to grow jobs throughout the state.

The GOP lawmaker who made an unsuccessful bid for agriculture commissioner several years ago is also a big advocate of new technologies.

Kemp has created several Web sites, one dubbed www.stopvoterfraud.us where citizens can report suspected voting violations.

Kemp has also created the site www.cutredtape.net. He says the many businesses “need ideas of how we can get government out of their life and make them more productive.”

Kemp told a small gathering that he feels new electronic voting machines are safe and secure, but he said that when a new generation of machines are developed, “I’d like to see us have some sort of paper back-up verification.”

Kemp is one of eight who have filed papers to seek the Secretary of State post.

The only other Republican candidate is Doug MacGinnitie from Sandy Springs. Five Democrats have filed including Gail Buckner of Jonesboro, Darryl Hicks of Fayetteville, Gary Horlacher from Peachtree City, Michael

Mills of Atlanta and Angela Moore of Decatur. Robin Carlisle of Flowery Branch has also filed paperwork to seek the office but does not list a party affiliation.

Georgia’s current Secretary of State Karen Handel is making a bid for governor.