Allegations Of Shredding 300+ Voter Applications In Fulton Leads To Firings, Investigation

FULTON COUNTY, GA — Two Fulton County elections workers have been fired after allegations they shredded paper voter registration ballots received within the last two weeks.

Fulton County Registration & Elections Director Richard Barron announced on Monday the termination and requested input from the Office of Investigations within the Secretary of State’s Office.

Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts reported the incident to the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for investigation.

“Elections are the most important function of our government,” Pitts said in a news release. “We have committed to transparency and integrity.”

Preliminary review suggests that employees may have checked out batches of applications for processing. Instead of fully processing them, in some instances, the employees allegedly shredded some forms. Fellow employees reported this behavior to their supervisor on Friday morning, and the employees were fired that day.

The firings came after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger requested the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Fulton County elections.

Raffensperger's office alleges that "Fulton County shredded 300 municipal election-related applications in violation of state law." State law requires election officials to preserve elections documents related to primary or general elections for 24 months after the election.

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office has launched its own investigation into the allegations.

“After 20 years of documented failure in Fulton County elections, Georgians are tired of waiting to see what the next embarrassing revelation will be,” Raffensperger said in a news release. “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. The voters of Georgia are sick of Fulton County’s failures.”

Raffensperger is also participating in a review under Georgia’s new election law that could lead to a replacement of the leadership of Fulton County’s elections, something he has also requested. His office made the following statement:

Elections in Fulton County have been problematic for decades. As a result of election failures in 2020, Raffensperger was the first secretary of state to force Fulton County elections into a consent order, requiring them to accept a state appointed monitor to oversee their elections processes. The monitor, Carter Jones, found no fraud but significant mismanagement issues in Fulton County’s elections processes. Jones described Fulton’s election processes as “badly managed, sloppy and chaotic” after spending several months working closely with Fulton County’s elections.

After repeatedly calling on the General Assembly to provide the authority to the Secretary of State’s office to fix failing counties, SB202 has finally provided the means to do so. Beforehand, because counties ran elections, there were few avenues for accountability at the state level when counties repeatedly failed their voters. The State Election Board had only limited ability to help voters, such as those in Fulton County, who had been failed repeatedly by their county elections leadership.

Any Fulton County resident who has questions may contact the Fulton County Department of Registration & Elections at 404-612-7030. Anyone who attempts to vote in an upcoming election who is found not to be registered will be able to vote on a provisional ballot, and further investigation will follow.