Now There’s a “Review” of Ballots Ordered in Fulton County Georgia...and the Circus Continues

Photo from the Georgia State Capitol, courtesy of Reuters

The ongoing and chaotic “audit” of Maricopa County ballots in Arizona has spawned a copycat effort in Georgia, where a Superior Court judge yesterday agreed to unseal 145,000 absentee ballots from Fulton County to allow a group of petitioners to review them. This review is not an official audit, which already took place three times under state law just after the election with each result confirming the tally. Nevertheless, the ruling is surprising and disappointing, given that the petitioners have presented no actual evidence of fraud to support their request. 

On the bright side, the scope and nature of the review will be limited. Unlike in Arizona, the Fulton County plaintiffs can only review high-resolution images that they scan from the originals, not take custody of the ballots or the voting machines themselves, a chain of custody nightmare which led to the circus now playing out in Arizona over bamboo fibers, UV lights, and compromised machines. 

Still, the mere existence of the lawsuit and the green light from this ruling will no doubt perpetuate false claims that should have long since been put to bed while further undermining results that were already confirmed twice. “It's a shame to see that the ‘Big Lie’ lives on and could cost the hardworking taxpayers of this county,” said Fulton County's top elected official, Rob Pitts.

The ruling specifically will give additional weight to former president Trump’s baseless claims of vote fraud in Georgia, which he pursued for two months after Election Day to the point where his personal efforts ventured into possible violations of state election laws. (The Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis, currently is looking into charges against Trump based on intimidating phone calls he made to Georgia’s election officials where he asked for them to “find” him over 11,000 votes.)

Georgia’s embattled Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, filed an amicus opposing the unsealing, preferring the petitioners be permitted only to review copies of the ballots. After the ruling though, he appeared to change his tune and then threw his fellow Georgia election officials under the bus, tweeting out that “Fulton County has a long standing history of election mismanagement that has understandably weakened voters’ faith in its system” and that “allowing this audit provides another layer of transparency and citizen engagement."

Spineless officials notwithstanding, the true danger from this “review” mirrors what we have already seen in other states. Even a completely baseless and false claim, such as the “deleted database” story pushed by Cyber Ninjas and the GOP in Arizona or the “overcounts” of votes in Michigan that were really from neighboring Minnesota, can quickly find acceptance as truth, especially when the former president and right wing publications amplify them. The debunking of these claims takes patience and time and often receives less media attention than the initial false claim itself. Here, the petitioners in Georgia will come into possession of actual scanned copies of ballots and could make wild assertions about them that might be difficult to disprove quickly, or that adherents to the Big Lie simply will glom onto as proof Trump was right, however shady or shaky the supporting evidence.

Election conspiracy theorists in Georgia remain unswayed by the fact that Trump lost in Georgia while somehow GOP senator David Perdue nearly garnered enough votes in November to prevent a run-off against Jon Ossoff. If this was clever machine-based election fraud, it was also apparently very stupid. Why not switch enough votes to Ossoff to take out Perdue in November, if Democrats had the power to change so many votes? The review of ballots remains focused solely on the presidential election, ignoring the other races entirely because they undercut their claims.

Unfortunately, the ruling is also likely to embolden proponents of the Big Lie to take similar actions elsewhere. “I wouldn't be surprised if we see something similar in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida,” warned Aunna Dennis, Executive Director of good government group Common Cause Georgia, “because this is a way for these actors to fundraise for elections going into 2022 and 2024.”