In Major Escalation, Trump DOJ Sues Fulton County, Georgia for 2020 Ballots

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing Fulton County, Georgia, seeking ballots and other election records from the 2020 presidential vote.

The lawsuit is a major escalation in the Trump administration’s dangerous effort to revive President Donald Trump’s fraudulent claims that the election was stolen.

In reality, Trump lost the race by a significant margin and his repeated allegations of fraud have been widely debunked.

In a new lawsuit, the DOJ is demanding “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

The suit, filed Friday on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s behalf by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, marks the first time the DOJ has officially demanded actual ballots from state or local officials as part of its pursuit of a myriad of election conspiracies.

The lawsuit is also the latest move in an effort backed by far-right members of the State Election Board of Georgia and anti-voting allies of the president to probe false claims of voter fraud in Fulton County, the state’s largest county and a Democratic stronghold.

Over two years ago, the State Election Board cleared Fulton County election workers and officials of alleged misconduct after a lengthy investigation. 

However, the Republican-controlled state election board sought to reopen a probe into Fulton County over the summer by asking the DOJ for assistance in obtaining voting records and documents related to the 2020 contest. Election conspiracists, too, have urged the DOJ to get involved in efforts to obtain the records.

While Dhillon’s lawsuit makes the demand for Fulton County ballots official, it wasn’t the DOJ’s first attempt at securing access. In August, Ed Martin, head of the DOJ’s vague weaponization task force, reportedly sent a letter to a Fulton County judge demanding to “immediately access” 148,000 absentee ballots being stored in a ballot warehouse.

In October, Dhillon, again on Bondi’s behalf, sent the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections a letter demanding the records.

In Friday’s lawsuit, Dhillon claimed that the Fulton board hadn’t complied with the letter’s demands and alleged that Ché Alexander, the clerk of courts for Fulton County, violated record retention requirements in the Civil Rights Act of 1960 by not producing the documents.

The act requires election officials to retain a large swath of documents, including voter registrations and ballots, for 22 months after any federal election. It also requires officials to make the documents available for “inspection, reproduction, and copying” in response to a request by the attorney general.

However, over 60 months have passed since the 2020 election, and it’s unclear whether the act still gives the DOJ authority to access the records on demand.

Dhillon asked a court to rule that Alexander is in violation of the Civil Rights Act and to order her to turnover the records.

Though Dhillon claimed that Alexander never replied to the October letter, the lawsuit says Alexander did indeed respond. The clerk said the documents could not be produced because they were “under seal and may not be produced absent a Court Order,” the suit reads.

This story has been updated with additional details throughout.