ATLANTA -- VoterGA announced today their drop box video survey team determined that 102 Georgia counties were unable to produce drop box surveillance videos from the November 2020 election. The team obtained admissions from 72 counties that all of the videos intended to monitor drop boxes for ballot trafficking were destroyed. VoterGA volunteers made the determinations by submitting Open Records Requests (ORR) for the videos from each county. Thus, video monitoring is missing for 181,507 cast ballots.
At a November 9, 2021 press conference, VoterGA announced that their ballot image analysis team determined at least 70 Georgia counties were unable to produce all the original ballot images from the November 2020 election. Digital ballot images are created automatically by the Dominion voting system for results tabulation. The team obtained admissions from 56 counties that most or all of their ballot images were unavailable. A total of 1.7 million images were destroyed.
According to state and federal law, all elections records must be retained. In fact, federal law requires a 22-month retention period for election records while state law requires a 24-month retention period for election documents that are formerly considered to include videos or electronic digital files. [USC 52 20701, O.C.G.A. 21-2-73]
When questioned as to why original 2020 ballot images and drop box surveillance videos were destroyed, counties blamed State Election Board (SEB) rules or instructions from the Secretary of State's (SOS) office. SEB Rule 183-1-12-.13 (c) tells Elections Superintendents they can overwrite memory cards containing ballot images in conflict with state and federal law. SEB Rule 183-1-14-0.6-.14 requires drop box videos to be retained for 30 days, which some counties falsely assumed was a minimum retention period.
VoterGA announced they served the SEB with a demand letter seeking the SEB to establish transparency for Georgia voters and to rectify these potential legal violations immediately. The letter states that VoterGA will take legal action to ensure that the SEB:
- • Notify all counties to preserve 2020 election ballots until all litigation is resolved;
- • Change the drop box video surveillance rule to preserve videos according to law;
- • Change the memory card overwrite rule to preserve ballot images according to law;
- • Seek an order to unseal all Fulton County ballots and envelopes for the 2020 election.
Co-founder, Garland Favorito noted: "We have proven that surveillance video for 181,000 drop box ballots have been destroyed, 107,000 drop box ballots have improper chain of custody and an even greater number of custody forms are estimated to be missing. With over 1.7 million original ballot images also destroyed, the actual election ballots must be preserved and unsealed to verify election results and detect counterfeits in the still highly controversial 2020 election. An election is not legitimate when votes are counted in secret. We must have full transparency into the 2020 election to ensure that the 2022 elections will be legitimate."
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VoterGA is a non-partisan, 501(c)3 registered non-profit organization created by a coalition of citizens working to restore election integrity in Georgia. We advocate for independently verifiable, auditable, recount capable and transparent elections.
