(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) An attorney for Fulton County, Georgia admitted earlier this month that the county accepted roughly 315,000 early votes that were not lawfully certified in the 2020 presidential election.
Attorney Ann Brumbaugh made the admission while representing the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections at a Dec. 9 hearing before the Georgia State Election Board, according to Wednesday’s reporting by The Federalist.
The SEB hearing pertained to a complaint filed by election integrity activist David Cross, who accuses Fulton County of having violated Georgia law by counting early votes that were not properly signed off by election workers.
As quoted by The Federalist, Brumbaugh told the board that Fulton County does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.”
She added, “It was a violation of the rule. We, since 2020, again, we have new leadership and a new building and a new board and a new standard operating procedures. And since then the training has been enhanced. … But … we don’t dispute the allegation from the 2020 election.”
According to The Federalist:
“Georgia’s Secretary of State Office investigated the alleged failure to sign tabluation [sic] tapes and ‘substantiated’ the findings that Fulton County ‘violated Official Election Record Document Processes when it was discovered that thirty-six (36) out of thirty-seven (37) Advanced Voting Precincts in Fulton County, Georgia failed to sign the Tabulation Tapes as required [by statute],’ according to a 2024 investigation summary. In addition to probing the unsigned tabulation tapes, the investigation also found that officials at 32 polling sites failed to verify their zero tapes.”
The issue, as detailed by the outlet, is that Georgia statute orders election officials to print three “closing tapes” toward the end of each voting day. Doing so allows officials to officially end counting for the day and avoid votes from the previous day being overcounted.
“These signed tapes are the sole legal certification that the reported totals are authentic,” Cross said during the SEB hearing. “Fulton County produced zero signed tabulator tapes in early voting.”
Cross reportedly uncovered the discrepancy through open records requests that cost him $15,800.
“These are not clerical errors. They are catastrophic breaks in chain of custody and certification,” Cross said. “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. And Secretary 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.”
