Fulton County withholds 2020 ballots despite Georgia law seeking disclosure
Fulton County is refusing to reveal ballots from the 2020 election even though a new Georgia law attempted to make them public.
The county’s decision to keep its ballots secret is the latest chapter in a four-year fight between right-wing skeptics who claim the 2020 election was stolen and the Democratic-run government they accuse of wrongdoing.
The new state law, which went into effect Jan. 1, was designed by Republican legislators to allow anyone to request high-resolution copies of ballots to review votes for themselves.
“Fulton obviously has something to hide,” said Garland Favorito, cofounder of the group VoterGA, who has sought access to Fulton’s ballots through two pending lawsuits. “This proves all along that we were right — there was something seriously wrong about the 2020 election in Fulton County.”
Multiple investigations have countered allegations of widespread fraud in Fulton County, and three vote counts showed that President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden by about 12,000 votes in Georgia.
But investigators have verified some problems such as double-scanned ballots, missing documentation and disorganization.
Favorito has pursued access to the ballots to search for counterfeit ballots or potential vote manipulation. However, state investigators couldn’t find any illegitimate ballots among 1,000 absentee ballots in batches identified by witnesses for Favorito, according to court filings.
Under the new law, county election officials are required to make copies of ballots upon request at a resolution higher than ballot images available from the secretary of state.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested copies of all ballots cast in Fulton in the 2020 election, but the county said the law doesn’t apply to that election.
Fulton said in a statement from its elections office that the county won’t produce higher-resolution ballot images because the secretary of state’s website doesn’t display ballots from 2020. A ballot image website by the secretary of state’s office went online last year with images from seven elections in 2024.
“The superintendent is only required to produce higher resolution ballot images if said ballot images are available on the secretary of state’s platform,” according to Fulton’s statement. “As the secretary of state has no digital postings of the 2020 ballot images, the superintendent is not required to produce the ensuing scanned ballot images.”
Other counties were willing to make copies of ballots from elections in 2023. New ballot images from the 2020 election aren’t available outside Fulton because laws only require election records to be retained for two years.
Court orders have forced Fulton to save its 2020 ballots while cases remain pending, including litigation by Favorito. The original ballots are kept sealed by the superior court clerk.
Cherokee County said it would rescan its 3,845 ballots from local elections in November 2023 for $1,252, according to a response to a records request by the AJC. DeKalb County said it would provide new scans of nearly 70,000 ballots cast in November 2023 for $6,476.
Fulton County’s elections office and its attorney declined requests for additional comment.
None of the members of Fulton’s election board — including two Democrats and two Republicans — responded to an email seeking comment.
Last year, investigations by the secretary of state’s office into Fulton’s handing of the 2020 election found over 3,000 double-scanned ballots during a recount as well as miscounts during an audit. Investigators blamed human errors, poor record-keeping and improper procedures. The inaccuracies didn’t change the outcome, and an election monitor said there wasn’t any intentional misconduct.
Fulton also failed to save ballot scans that could substantiate election results. Of about 528,000 votes cast in Fulton, nearly 377,000 ballot images are missing from the original count and almost 18,000 ballot images are missing from the recount, according to court records.
State Sen. Max Burns, who was the chairman of the Senate committee that sought disclosure of ballot images in the new law, said it was “absolutely” meant to make all ballots public. Burns said he hoped counties complied with the law, Senate Bill 189, but it wasn’t clear whether they could be compelled to provide records from elections prior to the law’s passage.
“To not do it certainly raises questions,” said Burns, a Republican from Sylvania. “I’d like for all of our counties to follow Georgia law to provide the information to the public as SB 189 requires.”
Without the law, it will be up to the courts to decide whether to grant access to Fulton’s ballots.
The Georgia Court of Appeals revived one of Favorito’s court cases in 2023, and he brought another lawsuit last year seeking high-resolution copies of ballots. But those cases have stalled since then, without any recent filings by the plaintiffs, the defense or the judges.
About the Author
Mark Niesse is an enterprise reporter and covers elections and Georgia government for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is considered an expert on elections and voting. Before joining the AJC, he worked for The Associated Press in Atlanta, Honolulu and Montgomery, Alabama. He also reported for The Daily Report and The Santiago Times in Chile.
