Last Updated on May 22, 2021
After news broke that a Georgia judge would allow the absentee ballots in Fulton County, Georgia to be unsealed and inspected, The Georgia Star News reports that Fulton County is still unable to provide the chain of custody for absentee ballots. Six months after the election, Fulton County reportedly told the publication that “more time is needed” to provide the chain of custody.
“Six months after the November 2020 election and after failing on two occasions to produce complete chain of custody documents for absentee ballot drop boxes, the Fulton County Registration and Elections officials advise that ‘more time is needed.'” The publication adds that these absentee ballots were “deposited over a 41-day voting period in 37 drop boxes placed throughout Fulton County.” The Center for Tech and Civic Life, funded heavily by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and other big tech billionaires, provided a massive amount of funding to counties and cities across the country for the purpose of installing these drop boxes.
The publication explains that their initial request for the chain of custody was in the form of an open records request on December 1, 2020. Officials claimed they would have the documents delivered by January 19. On January 22, the documents were “found to be insufficient to the request.” A second open records request was filed on April 8, with the county pledging to respond by April 19. The county then claimed that the “large file size required more time for review” and pushed until April 23. On May 3 these documents were delivered, and according to The Star News, “Fulton County’s own documentation showed that 385 transfer forms representing 18,901 absentee ballots deposited into drop boxes were still missing.”
The saga continued on May 17, when “The Star News advised Fulton County officials of the discrepancy in the documents received versus those that Fulton County says are available in their spreadsheet,” and, “On May 21, Fulton County responded,” and simply told the Star News that “more time is needed to review your findings.”
Yesterday, a Georgia judge granted a motion to unseal and inspect the absentee ballots. As National File reported, “Judge Brian Amero, of the Henry County Superior Court in Georgia, made the ruling on the Fulton County absentee ballots on Thursday. At a hearing on Monday, Judge Amero had indicated that he was inclined to rule in favor of unsealing the ballots, but requested a detailed plan for any inspection from election integrity advocate Garland Favorito, who filed the suit. ‘We want to do this in such a way that dispels rumors and disinformation and sheds light,’ Amero said during the hearing. ‘The devil’s in the details.’”
