GEORGIA – Fulton County’s Registration & Elections office says it has fired two employees who allegedly shredded hundreds of paper voter registration applications received within the last two weeks.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Fulton County elections following the allegations that 300 municipal election-related applications were destroyed by being shredded.
Residents of Fulton County will soon vote to elect an Atlanta mayor, City Council members and other municipal officials.
“After 20 years of documented failure in Fulton County elections, Georgians are tired of waiting to see what the next embarrassing revelation will be,” said Raffensperger. “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.”
Upon learning of the allegations, Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts says he reported it to the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for investigation.
“Elections are the most important function of our government,” said Chairman Pitts. “We have committed to transparency and integrity.”
According to the county: 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 of the forms. Fellow employees reported this behavior to their supervisor on Friday morning and the employees were terminated the same day.
After repeatedly calling for new leadership in Fulton’s elections, 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.
