Georgia Secretary of State’s Office Will Allow Inspection of Missing Ballot Images By Election Board…With a Huge Catch
This past May, the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) finally heard a complaint that was filed with the SEB in July 2022. The SEB is required to hear complaints within 90 days of being filed, but for this particular case, two years have passed. In December 2023, the SEB was scheduled to hear the case before abruptly removing it from the agenda for a December 19th meeting.
When it was finally heard at the SEB’s May meeting, the Secretary of State’s general counsel, Charlene McGowan, and one of her investigators were given the opportunity to present their findings. The Gateway Pundit covered this meeting and the presentation in a two-part series that can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2.
Notably, the presenters themselves, Georgia resident Joe Rossi and Elections Oversight Group’s Kevin Moncla, were not afforded an opportunity during that meeting to offer a rebuttal of the investigator’s presentation.
However, in the July meeting, complainants were afforded that opportunity after the SEB put it to a vote. Garland Favorito of VoterGA.org, data analyst Phillip Davis, and former voting systems tester Clay Parikh presented the rebuttal on behalf of complainants. The complainants also submitted a factual response to the Board.
One of the issues in question was the varying counts in Fulton County from the initial machine count, the hand recount, and the final second machine count, the latter of which was used for the “official results.” Part of the discrepancy pointed out in SEB Complaint 2023-025 was Fulton County coming up 17,234 ballots short during the machine recount, which again was used as the “official result.”
The final results were also missing 17,852 ballot images and contained at least 3,125 duplicate ballots in the count.
According to an email exchange between SEB member Dr. Jan Johnston and the Secretary’s general counsel Charlene McGowan, Dr. Johnston had requested information that was referred to during McGowan’s presentation. McGowan told Dr. Johnston that the request was to be treated as an “open records request,” an odd assertion against a Board tasked with oversight of the elections in Georgia.
In email to Dr. Johnston, McGowan writes:
“I have discussed with the Chairman your request that the electronic ballot images provided by Fulton County in response to a subpoena in the referenced case be provided to you on a flash drive. The Chairman and I agree that the request can be treated as an Open Records Request. As we would respond to any ORR for these files, there are both chain of custody issues and security concerns with allowing electronic copies of election data files to be distributed among the public. Until I am sure that the files do not have any other data associated with them other than the ballot images, they cannot be released.
However, we can make the files available for inspection, so long as the Board is in agreement that this case is fully resolved and closed. As I’ve said, this office keeps SEB investigative file materials confidential until the case is fully resolved and closed. If 2023-025 is a closed case, we can make them available to you to review at our office.”
Dr. Johnston responded that she did submit an ORR, but did not receive a response. When she was contacted by Gil Humes, one of the investigators, he told her she could review the images “next week” (this was May 29th, 2024). Dr. Johnston writes:
“Mr. Humes said that the images will be available for me to review next week. I still do not understand how Exhibit 11 was listed in the Case Summary which should have been available for all of the Board to review well before the meeting. Now I find that Exhibit 11 is still not available. This Exhibit was repeatedly referenced during the Investigator’s and Ms. McGowan’s presentation. Please help me understand how an Exhibit can be listed, referred to, and questioned about; yet I am still unable to see Exhibit 11. The viewing of Exhibit 11 ballot images does not fully resolve or close the Case.
The Secretary of State’s office seems desperate to close this case without actually providing the evidence they cite in their presentation to the Board. This seems backward logic, and as pointed out by Liz Harrington, “It’s just like their elections: we have to accept their results without them ever actually proving it.”
Raffensperger’s general counsel is holding evidence hostage from the State Election Board.
They can only see the ballot images if they agree to drop the investigation into why there were over 20,000 unsubstantiated votes in both the original and machine recount in 2020 pic.twitter.com/CANnJIGME8
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) July 25, 2024
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