By Doug Mainwaring
Approximately 150 ‘tabulator tapes’ tracking the votes of more than 300,000 early voters were not signed.
Fulton County, Georgia, has admitted to including 315,000 early votes in the disputed 2020 presidential election despite the fact that they were not properly certified according to state law.
State law demands that voting “tabulator tapes” that publish the recorded results of polling stations must be verified and signed by poll workers, but approximately 150 tapes tracking the votes of more than 300,000 early voters were not signed.
In a hearing before the State Election Board (SEB), an attorney for Fulton County said the county does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.”
“It was a violation of the rule,” she said. “They shouldn’t have done it.”
“At best, this is sloppy and lazy. At worst, it could be egregious,” fired back Georgia SEB Member Janelle King. “It could have affected an election.”
The December 9 hearing was the result of election integrity activist David Cross, who filed a challenge with the board in 2022, alleging that Fulton County’s handling of early voting violated the state’s election rules.
“These are not clerical errors. They are catastrophic breaks in chain of custody and certification,” Cross said during the hearing.
“Because no tape was ever legally certified, Fulton County had no lawful authority to certify its advanced voting results to the secretary of state. Yet it did,” said Cross. “And Secretary [Brad] Raffensperger accepted and folded those uncertified numbers into Georgia’s official total without questioning them.”
“This is not partisan. This is statutory. This is the law. When the law demands three signatures on tabulator tapes and the county fails to follow the rules, those 315,000 votes are, by definition, uncertified,” said Cross.
Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, took to social media to discount the allegations.
“Georgia has the most secure elections in the country and all voters were verified with photo ID and lawfully cast their ballots. A clerical error at the end of the day does not erase valid, legal votes,” averred Raffensberger.
Meanwhile, Republicans took issue with Raffensperger’s denial of the seriousness of Fulton County’s procedural lapse.
Republican Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones ridiculed Raffensberger’s post.
“If only Georgia had an official responsible for preventing clerical errors that undermine election integrity,” said Jones, a candidate for Georgia governor.
“Is there anyone in Georgia who has that job, Brad?” asked Jones, his opponent in the state’s gubernatorial race.
“We just started peeling the layers back on this onion and it already stinks,” said U.S. House Rep. Mike Collins (GA-10). “Years later, when the truth finally comes out, Trump was right.”
“President Trump is owed a massive apology,” asserted Collins. “Turns out over 300,000 early votes in the 2020 election were illegally certified but still included in the final results.”
Collins said he is “tired of empty words from weak leaders. The people of Georgia demand action.”
In the 2020 election, Joe Biden narrowly beat out incumbent President Donald Trump by less than 12,000 votes in the Peach Tree State.
