Georgia’s State Election Board on July 9 gave initial approval to an amended rule that would give local officials more authority to dispute election results if there is a discrepancy in vote totals tallied and the number of votes cast at precincts.
The proposed rule, approved by a 3-1 vote, "would require local election officials to count ballots at the precinct level on election night and investigate any discrepancies prior to certifying the election," the Georgia Recorder reported.
There were numerous discrepancies in the 2020 Fulton County election result that have yet to be accounted for and which impacted the final tally, according to former Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington, who has been closely tracking the issue.
Consequences? Zero.
That said, the Georgia State Election Board considers the matter settled.
"Three Republican board members supported a measure they believe will help reduce the likelihood of inaccurate ballot totals requiring correction long after an election is over," according to the Georgia Recorder report.
The changes could be in place for this November’s general election if the proposed amendments are finalized next month.
But after what went down in Fulton County in 2020, can voters trust the system in 2024?
'The results changed'
Joe Biden reportedly won Georgia in 2020 by less than 14,000 votes.
Key to his "victory" was Fulton County, where machine count numbers did not appear to add up, those who continue to dispute the results say.
"The first machine count had dragged on for days after Nov. 4, the day Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger promised the counting would be finished, and President Trump’s over 103,000 vote lead was insurmountable," former Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington wrote for the War Room on June 26. The 17,234 votes Fulton County had to come up with were important."
Richard Barron, who oversees elections in Fulton County, said at a Dec. 4, 2020 Fulton County Election Board meeting: "The recount, we concluded that on Wednesday night [Dec. 2]. We submitted our results and then yesterday the state allowed us to do reconciliation. The results changed.”
Barron's declaration "was an understatement," Harrington noted:
"When you have a problem like a 17,000 vote discrepancy in an election you’re claiming was decided by less than 13,000 votes, who do you call? The Elections Group, of course. They seemed to pop up everywhere, out of nowhere, in 2020. Setting up drop boxes and training election officials in Madison, Wisconsin. Programming the machines in Maricopa County, Arizona. Its members briefing CISA on how to '#PROTECT2020.' Protect it from whom?"
Barron sent an email to Ryan Macias, of the Elections Group, at 12:13 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2020. There was no subject and nothing in the body of the email, only a file attached entitled, "Batches Loaded Report.”
Three and a half years after that email was sent, Harrington noted, "the Georgia State Election Board heard the results of an investigation into the recount, and confirmed Fulton County violated election rules."
Independent investigators presented evidence showing over 20,000 ballots were inserted into both the original results and the second machine count out of thin air.
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"Simply put, Fulton County did not have the paper ballots to justify their original results, and they got caught," Harrington wrote. "Of course, investigators and lawyers from Brad Raffensperger’s Secretary of State office, who handled the investigation into the complaint, claimed otherwise. Don’t worry about the electronic record of the votes (which are counted…electronically), they said, we have the paper ballots — they just won’t let anyone else see them. And Fulton County is seeking to destroy them. Sure, the investigation confirmed there are missing ballot images and duplicate ballots. Were they counted? Who’s to say? It’s not like they could go check the cast vote record and the paper ballots. Oh, wait."
Harrington continued: "The mantra during the hours-long review of the case at the Georgia State Capitol last month was, 'Let’s just move on.' Tell that to President Donald J. Trump and 18 others who Fulton County is trying to put in jail over the 2020 Election.
"It was something to behold. The 'experts' from the Secretary of State’s office tried to characterize the complainants as plebes and know-nothings, while exposing that they know next to nothing about their own elections. They say what they’re told to say. Despite their efforts to discredit the complaint, they were forced to admit the truth: Fulton County does not have supporting documentation to back up its election results in 2020."
Charlene McGowan, the general counsel for Raffensperger, admitted that ballot images are "part of the paper trail that we use to confirm the accuracy of the results.”
All in-person votes in Fulton County, roughly 375,000, have no ballot images from the original results, and, according to the complaint, there are 17,852 missing ballot images from the recount. Statewide, there were 1.7 million ballot images missing or destroyed after the Election.
"By McGowan’s own admission, Georgia does not have a paper trail to justify its results," Harrington noted. "McGowan confirmed ballot images are still missing, and duplicate ballots were scanned, they just didn’t bother to check if they were counted, which would have been easy to do since they were given a list of the exact ballots with corresponding batch numbers. They didn’t want to have to reveal the answer. According to the cast vote record, they were."
Raffensperger’s office passed the blame off to Fulton County, which they said "used improper procedures” during the machine recount. Raffensperger's office never addressed how it was their office that ordered Fulton to reconcile the count when it was off by over 17,000.
"Yes, Fulton County did send its results to an outside group, but that was okay because he was a paid consultant, according to a memorandum the state investigators did not produce publicly," Harrington wrote. "It was the same for all their claims. Nothing was made public, and the complainants were not allowed to address the board, outside a two minute public comment period. Investigate yourselves, keep the findings hidden, and allow no rebuttal. Nice work if you can get it."
Dr. Janice Johnston was the sole member of the Fulton County board to offer motions for accountability, none of which were seconded.
"The rest of the Board seemed content, along with Fulton County and the Secretary of State, to brush the whole thing under the rug," Harrington wrote.
"There is a concept called res judicata, which is the civil equivalent of double jeopardy,” said Sara Tindall Ghazal, a Democrat Board member, wincing, when the fact that the hand count audit, which was the second count of the ballots, also included thousands of duplicates and false Biden votes, was brought up. "We have already heard this. It has been done. It is finished.”
The only problem, Harrington added, is "no one has been held accountable or prosecuted once over the stolen 2020 Presidential Election, let alone twice, except, of course, those who objected to it. And if America is to have free and fair elections again, the matter is far from over."
Georgia State Election Board also votes 4-0 to adopt rule based on petition to require a public reconciliation report for each precinct showing the number of voters and the number of votes match.
Any discrepancy must be fully investigated. pic.twitter.com/y1i6xZ4N4I — Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) July 9, 2024
