Georgia Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ordered Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, to begin making plans to unseal 142,000 mail-in ballots from the 2020 election.
A lawsuit filed by multiple plaintiffs states that fraudulent mail-in ballots were counted in Fulton County.
As part of the Georgia lawsuit, Fulton County had already produced scanned images of the mail-in ballots, but one of the plaintiffs, Garland Favorito, who has challenged Georgia’s voting technology for years, said he wants the ballots scanned at a higher resolution so they can be “forensically analyzed.”
Favorito says the lawsuit is important to ensuring future Georgia elections are transparent and fair.
He said the judge ordered that Fulton County physically handle the ballots for any potential scanning. But lawyers for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffesnperger warned against allowing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit to handle the paper ballots themselves, saying there are “serious privacy and security risks” and pointing out the ballots can be “easily altered and manipulated” to spread potential misinformation.
Raffensberger’s statement read, “From day one I have encouraged Georgians with concerns about the election in their counties to pursue those claims through legal avenue.”
The top Georgia Democrat, Rob Pitts, said the lawsuit is tied to Trump’s Big Lie.
“It’s a shame to see that the ‘Big Lie’ lives on and could cost the hardworking taxpayers of this county,” he said.
From NPR