OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has begun an investigation into how drop boxes were handled in the Democrat leaning DeKalb County.
The investigation was started last week after a report from The Georgia Star News claimed that there was an issue with 43,000 ballots missing chain of custody documentation.
This does not mean that any of the ballots were not legal and valid, simply that they are missing the chain of custody documentation, which is important to verify that the ballots were legally cast.
“The Secretary of State’s office has opened an investigation into the drop box chain of custody documentation for Dekalb County,” his office said to Just the News. “The investigation includes not only whether Dekalb County properly complied with the documentation required by the State Election Board but also whether the actual procedures used by Dekalb adequately protected chain of custody for ballots returned to drop boxes.”
And another report from The Georgia Star News showed that the chain of custody “transfer forms” for 6,995 absentee ballots in Fulton County
Eleven months after the November 3, 2020 election, a review of transfer forms provided to The Georgia Star News in response to an open records request reveals that the Secretary of State’s office in Georgia is missing chain of custody documents for 6,995 absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes in Fulton County during the November 2020 election.
The number of absentee ballots for which the office has no evidence of the origination of the ballots represents nine percent of the 79,460 total that Fulton County has recorded as being deposited into drop boxes during the more than month-long early voting and Election Day period.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, certified the results of the November 3, 2020 election–which gave Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes to Joe Biden by a margin of 12,670 votes out of 5 million votes cast–on November 20, 2020 without having seen or reviewed the chain of custody documents associated with an estimated 600,000 absentee ballots deposited in 300 drop boxes around the state. Fulton County’s 79,460 absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes were about 13 percent of the state total of 600,000.
For perspective, the vote that was certified by the Republican Secretary of State, gave Joe Biden the victory in Georgia by a margin of 12.670 votes.
“Raffensperger did so without having seen or reviewed the chain-of-custody documents associated with an estimated 600,000 total absentee ballots deposited in 300 drop boxes across the state. The number of absentee ballots deposited in Fulton County drop boxes represented about 13% of the state total,” Just The News said.
“Raffensperger has never offered an explanation as to why he certified the state’s election results without having even looked at the chain of custody documents for absentee ballots placed in drop boxes,” it said.
But during a panel discussion on Friday, the Secretary of State said it is time for Republicans to get over the 2020 presidential election, The Albany Herald reported.
“People weren’t questioning the (election) process before, but there was a huge disinformation campaign which really destabilized many segments of American society,” he said at the University of California, Irvine School of Law’s Fair Elections and Speech Center forum on “election subversion.” “I think the challenge that we have as Republicans is that right now our party is really fractured.”
He said that Republicans should be focused on winning future elections and not harassing people who work the elections.
“No one should ever be threatened, a poll worker particularly,” he said. “Many of those are volunteer positions. They’re doing this out of their civic responsibility, and that needs to end and we need to make sure coming into 2022 that we have safe, secure elections and people aren’t threatened with their lives.”
