A group of Georgia voters filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court earlier this week against the individual members of the Fulton County Board of Elections and individually against Richard Barron, Fulton County Elections Director. The lawsuit focused on the security footage presented by Trump’s legal team during the Georgia Senate hearing, popularized as the “suitcase ballots” video.
The plaintiffs alleged that the group of workers seen on video illegally scanned thousands of mail-in ballots hidden underneath skirted tables. They also claimed that those ballots may be fraudulent. Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VOTERGA), a nonpartisan and non-profit election integrity coalition, organized the aggrieved voters into a group of plaintiffs.
Election officials have roundly dismissed the claim that the suitcase ballots were abnormal. They asserted that the cases containing the ballots were regular containers, and that no poll workers or monitors were asked to leave that evening. However, rebutting claims alleged that neither the containers or skirted tables were protocol.
VOTERGA’s press release stated that the lawsuit emphasized an alleged connection between the group of workers scanning and a subsequent, irregular surge of votes.
“After scanning was complete, an election line feed showed an unprecedented vote spike that turned the election in favor of Presidential candidate Joe Biden,” stated VOTERGA.
According to the press release, the lawsuit cited four affidavits from “experienced hand count monitors” that claim to have handled irregular mail-in ballots during the first audit.
“They contend the ballots did not have creases from mailing, were not marked with a writing instrument and were on unusual ballot stock,” read the press release. “Other affidavits include one from a recount monitor who saw 9 unlocked ballot bags and a poll manager who participated in testing on many live ballots that were also left unsecured.”
The description of the affidavits included those filed previously in other election lawsuits. The lawsuit also alleged that the county failed twice to fulfill Open Records Requests, to count votes for write-in candidates, and to respond properly to election irregularities.
“Four of the counts allege that votes cast by voters within the county and across the state were diluted by the illegal activity at State Farm Arena,” stated the press release. “The petition contends that such actions by the Defendants violates their oath of office to prevent fraud.”
The voters petitioned for a temporary injunction to inspect Fulton County’s absentee ballots visually, rescan mail-in ballots under a forensic examination, examine copies of Dominion Voting Machines ballot images and election reports. Under Georgia law, only a court order can make available cast ballots for public inspection.
In an exclusive interview with The Georgia Star News, VOTERGA Co-Founder Garland Favorito divulged that there were more voters who wanted to sign on as plaintiffs than he’d anticipated.
“We have hundreds of volunteers,” explained Favorito. “We just [explained] last weekend in our meeting that we were going to sue the county for what they did at State Farm. And we asked if anyone would like to serve as plaintiffs. We only really needed 2-4 – but so many wanted to do it [that] we ended up with nine plaintiffs.”
Favorito added that the legal counsel would be Todd Harding from the firm Maddox & Harding.
“He represented us when we went to the Georgia Supreme Court a few years ago. We lost that case, but then the U.S. District Court last year basically overturned the Georgia Supreme Court and ruled that we were correct all along because it [the election process] wasn’t verifiable, auditable, and repeatable,” stated Favorito. “The Georgia Supreme Court ruled against us because they didn’t apply strict scrutiny for the right to vote, and then the District Court reached the opposite conclusion with the same [type of] case.”
The Georgia Supreme Court case that Favorito was involved in occurred in 2009. The subsequent U.S. District Court case was filed by a different set of plaintiffs, and occurred last year. Favorito also testified on his findings before the Georgia House of Representatives last week. Earlier this week, the House called suddenly for a second hearing, scheduled for Wednesday morning.
“I think this suit has a better chance of success than other suits because it’s very precise,” Favorito told The Star News. “There’s nothing esoteric about it.”
According to Favorito, the voters’ lawsuit was filed late Tuesday night. He informed The Star News that Fulton County Superior Court has deducted fees but has yet sent a stamp-approved copy by the time of press.
Favorito expressed displeasure with state and local election officials’ responses to voting irregularities.
“It greatly disturbs us that we had to spend our time and money to do this because Fulton County and the secretary of state’s office seem intent on covering this up,” stated Favorito.
As Breitbart News reported, Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron orchestrated the acceptance of a $6.3 million grant from the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Technology and Civic Life “Safe Elections” project at a meeting of the Fulton County Board Commissioners with no public discussion in early September:
The Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted to accept a $6.3 million grant from the Mark-Zuckerberg funded Center for Technology and Civic Life “Safe Elections” project at a September 2, 2020 board meeting. It proceeded without asking a single question about the name of the group providing the funding, the origin of the funding, or the details of what the funding would be used for…
Later in that meeting, Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron told the Fulton County Board of Commissioners how he was able to secure the grant for the county, but failed to mention the name of the funding group–CTCL–or the fact they had only one day earlier, on September 1, received a $250 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, to fund the Fulton County grant.
“I went this summer and sought some grant funding, which the BOC approved today for over $6.3 million, and we’ve also received $5 million in COVID funding. And then with the $3.5 million soundings request today, that totals $14.5 million more in additional investments for we’re going to be — we were able to secure a lot of new polling places for, if we clean them afterwards, we got tech-support at all voting locations, postage and absentee ballots that we have to mail out,” Barron told the Fulton County Board of Commissioners at their September 2, 2020 board meeting.
As The Star News reported, Fulton County has failed to provide ballot transfer forms to document the chain of custody of an estimated tens of thousands of absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes during the November 3 presidential election as requested in a Star News Open Records Request, though it has promised to provide whatever documents it may discover by January 19.
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Corinne Murdock is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and the Star News Network. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to [email protected].
