For the past seven months, misinformation and false claims of fraud in Fulton County have dominated certain corners of the Internet and the Republican Party, with many refusing to accept results that showed three separate times that Donald Trump lost Georgia.
Georgia's most populous county is home to the heavily Democratic city of Atlanta — and a history of
problems and
shortcomings with election administration.
But ever since November's presidential race saw President Joe Biden flip Georgia by about 12,000 votes, some pro-Trump media outlets and politicians have zeroed in on Fulton in search of a smoking gun that would prove massive fraud cost the former president a victory. Those calls have come even after a full hand count risk-limiting audit (RLA) confirmed Biden's victory and a Trump campaign-ordered recount validated victory once more.
In recent weeks: A
Newsmax personality launched a weekend of
fantastical speculation about an alarm at a building that included Fulton's ballot warehouse; a Constitution Party officer who's
espoused fringe views about 9/11, presidential assassinations and elections for years has advanced a lawsuit seeking to find "counterfeit absentee ballots;" and prominent lawmakers have
suggested that evidence would emerge that could result in decertification of the election — all as election workers
continue to face death threats for doing their jobs.
Ahead of a hearing on the lawsuit seeking to inspect images of Fulton's absentee ballots for fraud, a pair of pro-Trump media outlets have pushed false and misleading stories about the county's absentee drop box documentation and risk-limiting audit forms, implying or outright stating — but without real evidence — that the already-certified election should be overturned.
Fulton County drop box forms
One claim is that Fulton County is missing hundreds of transfer records for thousands of absentee ballots deposited in 38 drop boxes ahead of November's election, with an implication that the missing paperwork could or should invalidate more ballots than the margin of Biden's victory.
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Fulton County risk-limiting audit
Thursday morning, a report by Just The News used selectively edited notes from a state-appointed monitor and a misunderstanding of elections and the risk-limiting audit process to claim that ballots "may be missing."
The article notes that in the tally sheet documents uploaded on the state's website, Fulton has several data entry errors — appearing to duplicate batches, missing some batch numbers and failing to check boxes about unsealing the container before counting.
But there are more human explanations to the paperwork — as well as a reminder that the results of that audit were not certified and did not affect the initial or final counts of the election.
After the first results of the election, Georgia's 159 counties conducted a
full hand-count risk-limiting audit: a post-election audit that is designed to determine if the correct winner won, not verify the precise margin. Typically, an RLA would use a smaller, statistically significant random sampling of ballots that are hand counted and compared to the results. But because the margin in the presidential contest was narrow and attention was so high, the state ordered all the ballots to be hand counted.
During the RLA process, some counties discovered ballots that were not included in the original tally, but the results of the RLA did not change the results of the election. Any mistakes were incorporated into a machine recount requested by the Trump campaign after the RLA.
As for the missing batch numbers and duplicate batches, Georgia's RLA used a software called Arlo from a company called VotingWorks, who helped the state conduct the audit. Once the audit teams counted their batches and filled out the tally sheets, the batches were entered into the system. Fulton officials said it was not easy to see previous batches entered to ensure there was not duplication.
There are 1,927 tally sheets on the Fulton documents section of the state's RLA results, and 1,916 rows of batches on the state's Excel spreadsheet. Additionally, Fulton's election results saw Joe Biden get 381,144 votes and Donald Trump get 137,240 votes. The RLA tallies show 381,179 votes for Biden and 137,620 votes for Trump, confirming Biden won and coming within 0.1% of the ballots cast the first time.
As for the notes from Seven Hills Strategies that suggest fraudulent activity, according to copies of the reports obtained by GPB News, the monitor found plenty of parts of the process that need improvement, but
no evidence of fraud.
It is also important to remember the context for these claims as well as the messengers: All of this comes days before a hearing to potentially dismiss a case seeking to inspect higher resolution scans of Fulton's absentee ballots that many in the pro-Trump sphere are heralding as the doorway to somehow "forensically audit" Georgia's votes — a fantasy that is undermining trust in the Republican-picked and Republican-controlled election system ahead of a contentious 2022 statewide election.
(full story online)
A pair of reports posted by pro-Trump media outlets falsely claim Fulton County is missing documentation and ballots from November's election, the latest attacks on Georgia's voting process by those who refuse to accept the results.
www.gpb.org
