Fulton County's elections chief fired two workers who were seen
shredding the voter applications on Friday and then disclosed the
problem to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office earlier
Monday, state officials said.
Georgia's top election official on Monday demanded that the U.S. Justice Department open an investigation into election management in the state's largest county after officials in Fulton County disclosed they had shredded at least 300 voter applications for its upcoming municipal elections in apparent violation of the law.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office told Just the News that his office had also opened an inquiry into the disclosure by Fulton County officials but believed it was time for federal prosecutors to review chronic election irregularities inside the state's largest county, which includes the city of Atlanta.
"The Department of Justice needs to take a long look at what Fulton County is doing and how their leadership disenfranchises Fulton voters through incompetence and malfeasance." He added, "The voters of Georgia are sick of Fulton County's failures." State officials told Just the News that Fulton County's elections chief fired two workers who were seen shredding the voter applications on Friday and then disclosed the problem to Raffensperger's office earlier Monday.
Georgia law requires election officials to preserve all documents related to primary or general elections for 24 months after the election.
The shredded documents are believed to be voter applications to vote in this fall's local elections in Fulton County, officials said.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently warned all voting jurisdictions nationwide, including those conducting audits into the November 2020 vote, that destruction of election evidence related to federal officeholder elections could also violate federal laws.
"Section 301 of the Act requires state and local election officials to 'retain and preserve' all records relating to any 'act requisite to voting' for twenty-two months after the conduct of 'any general, special, or primary election' at which citizens vote for 'President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the Senate, [or] Member of the House of Representatives,' 52 U.S.C. §20701. The materials covered by Section 301 extend beyond 'papers' to include other 'records.'" State officials told Just the News the review will include whether similar destruction of records occurred in earlier elections, including those for federal office.
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