President Donald J. Trump urged Georgia officials to act after the State Election Board referred a historic 2020 election fraud case for further investigation.
The case, SEB2023-025, which includes evidence of intentional election fraud, has survived after more than two years of stonewalling and cover up attempts by Fulton County and the Secretary of State’s office.
On Wednesday, led by Dr. Janice Johnston, Janelle King, and Rick Jeffares, the State Election Board voted to override Chairman John Fervier and send the complaint’s major findingsof 17,852 missing ballot images in the machine recount, 3,930 duplicates, and 10 non-existent tabulators providing over 20,000 votes to the original count to Attorney General Chris Carr’s office for further investigation.
WOW! Despite efforts to shut it down by the chairman, SEB2023-025 LIVES!
17,852 missing ballot images, 3,930 duplicates, missing documentation for 10 mystery tabulators all referred to the AG office for further investigation by outside investigators
PTL! pic.twitter.com/bZ1sSYB8EC
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) August 7, 2024
President Trump responded to the decision on Truth social.
"The Attorney General of Georgia MUST get moving on this. So must Governor Kemp, and the Secretary of State,” he said. "It’s Fulton County again. Why aren’t they doing this? What is going on? We can’t let this happen again. WE MUST WIN GEORGIA IN 2024!!! The Governor and A.G. MUST LEAD!”
The 3-2 vote requires Carr’s office to use outside investigators and report back within 30 days. If they are "unwilling or unable” to conduct an investigation, the State Election Board will seek outside legal counsel to take it over.
The Board also voted for the AG to complete a conflict of interest assessment to determine who should represent the State Election Board in this matter. Brad Rafffensperger’s general counsel Charlene McGowan previously stated it was the position of the Attorney General’s office that the State Election Board "cannot pursue complaints against” the Secretary of State, which bears the ultimate responsibility as the chief elections official in Georgia for the allegations of fraud raised in the complaint.
McGowan took over the investigation into the complaint after it was abruptly pulled from the State Election Board meeting’s agenda last December. She previously worked in Carr’s office as the assistant district attorney, and also worked to impede investigations into the Secretary of State. When former Chairman of the State Election Board William Duffey sought further investigation into SEB2021-181, a previous case brought by the complainants of SEB2023-025, involving more than 4,081 false votes for Joe Biden that were inserted into the hand count audit — McGowan shut it down. She claimed the AG’s office "does not take legal action against their own clients,” which includes the Secretary of State, in an email sent July 21, 2023.
"I have instructed our investigations division that this office will not be opening up a case on this complaint,” McGowan wrote.
Now, a year later, McGowan is keeping evidence for SEB2023-025 (or lack thereof) hidden from the Election Board, holding it hostage in exchange for closing the case. The state wanted the Board to agree to close the investigation before letting the Board see the evidence which is the entire basis for closing the investigation.
In trying to block the case from moving forward, Fervier repeatedly contended the matter was already "closed,” because of a May 7 hearing where the Secretary of State and Fulton County failed to disprove the allegations and spread misinformation about 2020 and Georgia’s elections, including basic information of how votes are tabulated.
McGowan’s predecessor, Ryan Germany, also appeared at the Wednesday Board meeting and continued to lie about 2020, falsely claiming no ballots were scanned twice. There were 3,930 ballots scanned multiple times in Fulton County alone, which were deliberately taken from different batches and scanned to make new ones days later, and flipped over in order to reverse their order.
Germany inserted himself into the Board meeting to provide a so-called "monitoring team” for Fulton County in 2024, to observe voting problems Germany claims do not even exist. The monitoring team was, in the words of Dr. Johnston, "cooked up” by former Board member Ed Lindsey to crush the case before it was even heard on May 7.
Kevin Moncla, who along with Joe Rossi brought the complaint more than two years ago, sent a letter to the Election Board Wednesday morning ahead of the vote arguing the case has never been truly adjudicated because the complainants were not given the opportunity to present their findings in a hearing.
"The initial investigation was a sham,” Moncla wrote. "Fulton County refused to make its technical expert available to the Board for the hearing. Fulton County did not find the requested documentation.”
Further, Moncla noted, Fulton County itself says the case is open and "under investigation” — so it can continue to hide the ballot images it claimed to have found in the state’s "Exhibit 11,” which it still refuses to share with the Election Board.
"Fulton County wants to have its cake and eat it too,” Moncla said. "It claims there is an investigation for refusing to provide documents that it is required by law to provide, whether or not an investigation is pending. But it also claims the matter is a final ‘adjudication’ and there is no investigation pending. These positions are contradictory and at odds with Georgia and federal law.”
Montclair demanded a hearing and an independent investigation by qualified experts who understand the voting system.
"The right to know that a vote is cast in a manner that will be secure and not diluted by improper conduct is a fundamental governmental interest,” he said.
In addition to keeping the election fraud complaint alive, the State Election Board advanced several election integrity rules ahead of the November presidential election. Under a major rule change, county officials can now make a "reasonable inquiry” into the election results before certification, a rule opposed by Democrat lawyer Marc Elias, the ACLU, and Fervier, who brought in a CREW attorney named Nikhel Sus, to argue against it. Other rules passed included allowing the posting of signs at polling places that voting is for U.S. citizens only, a requirement of counties to preserve memory cards used by the voting tabulators, and a new requirement of the Postal Service to provide tracking for mail-in ballots. The rules came on the heels of the Board requiring three election officials to count the ballots at the precinct level to ensure the totals match with the machines during each day of voting.
President Trump recently praised the reconciliation rule at a rally in Atlanta, while warning Georgia could be stolen again.
Moncla also suggested the issues in Fulton, which includes over 20,000 unsubstantiated ballots in both machine counts in 2020 and the entirety of in-person early voting record missing from the original results, "could be repeated in 2024.”
Walz Says he will Decide IF @realDonaldTrump Truth Social will be allowed to CONTINUE !!!
https://thefederalist.com/2024/08/08/walz-theres-no-guarantee-to-free-speech-if-democrats-dont-like-what-you-say/
I found it very hard to read because of the use of all the “red” used in the article. When you use a color it should be used for emphasis. The writer used it without thought. The rating of 5 is not mine. I would give a 3 maybe.