Judge allows self-described anti-fraud group to review Georgia ballots
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[May 24, 2021]
By Julia Harte
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Georgia judge on
Friday ordered Atlanta's Fulton County to unseal more than 145,000
absentee ballots cast during the November 2020 election, allowing
self-described election integrity activists to evaluate the legitimacy
of the ballots.
Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero, who is overseeing the
case, ruled that Fulton County must unseal the ballots so the
petitioners could inspect and scan them, not merely look at copies,
according to his order filed in the Fulton County Superior Court.
The order paves the way for a second review of ballots in the United
States by private groups who claim without evidence that widespread
voting fraud in populous cities helped Joe Biden, a Democrat, unfairly
defeat then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.
Trump and his allies spent two months denying his election defeat. State
and federal officials and multiple courts rejected the Trump campaign's
claims that the election was stolen from him. Trump followers attacked
the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 while Congress was certifying the results,
leading to five deaths.
Since then, Trump supporters have sought revisions of voting outcomes in
several states. Arizona's Republican-controlled state Senate ordered an
audit of roughly 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, where
nearly two thirds of the state's population resides.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we see something similar in Michigan,
Pennsylvania and Florida, because this is a way for these actors to
fundraise for elections going into 2022 and 2024," said Aunna Dennis,
Executive Director of good government group Common Cause Georgia.
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An employee of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections
processes ballots in Atlanta, Georgia U.S., November 5, 2020.
REUTERS/Brandon Bell
The nine petitioners seeking to inspect and scan
Fulton County's absentee ballots are led by Garland Favorito, a
Fulton County voter who said, in the petition last December that
launched the case, that he saw an "abnormal" increase in votes for
Biden while observing the ballot tabulation in his county.
Favorito is the co-founder of a self-described election watchdog
group called Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in
Georgia, according to his Twitter profile.
"This conspiracy theory about counterfeit ballots has been trotted
out by proponents of the 'Big Lie' across the country and shot down
every time," said Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts in a statement
on Friday after Amero ordered the county to unseal the absentee
ballots.
Georgia's Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, had
previously asked the court to let the petitioners only view copies
of the ballots, not inspect and scan the original ballots, according
to an amicus brief he filed in April.
In an apparent about-face on Friday, however, Raffensperger seemed
to support Amero's decision, writing in a Twitter post, without
detailing evidence, that Fulton County had long mismanaged its
elections, and that "allowing this audit provides another layer of
transparency and citizen engagement."
(Reporting by Julia Harte; editing by Grant McCool)
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