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ATLANTA (CN) — The FBI executed a search warrant on Fulton County’s election operations center Wednesday, just a month after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking copies of the county’s ballots from the 2020 presidential election.
Tony Thomas, spokesperson for the Atlanta office of the FBI, said the agency was executing a “court-ordered activity” at the elections warehouse in Union City just outside of Atlanta, but was unable to provide further details on what they were seizing.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Fulton County Clerk of Courts Ché Alexander said during a press conference.
Alexander currently faces a federal lawsuit on claims she violated federal law by failing to produce the requested ballots and election records to the Department of Justice. But It is unclear whether Wednesday’s action is connected.
Fulton County commissioner Mo Ivory said during the press conference the FBI was collecting 700 boxes of ballots from the 2020 presidential election.
“We are obviously concerned about once the ballots leave here, what will happen to the ballots, and our lawyers are going to be working on that,” Ivory said.
She said she believes the sudden seizure is a scare tactic by the Trump administration to instill fear and chaos, noting the ballots have been in storage for six years without issue.
“Fulton County is the only county right now fighting over an election that already happened,” she said. “This is the beginning of the chaos of 2026 that is about to ensue.”
According to warrants signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas, the FBI is seizing all records related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, including all physical ballots from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County, absentee ballots, advanced voting ballots, provisional ballots, emergency ballots, damaged or destroyed ballots, duplicated ballots or any ballot that was used to cast a vote.
All tabular tapes for every single voting machine used in Fulton County are being seized as well, along with all ballot images processed during the ballot count beginning on Nov. 3, 2020, and all county voter rolls from the election.
“Don’t get scared by these things. There is an election in May for a primary and there’s an election in November and we should all turn out, no matter what party you are voting for to protect the right to vote in America,” Ivory said.
As Fulton County became the target of President Donald Trump’s unsupported claims that his narrow defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia was the result of a “rigged” election, some Republicans expressed confidence in the motives behind the FBI’s actions.
“Its been a long time coming to get the answers that need to be given,” Salleigh Grubbs, the first vice chair of the Georgia Republican Party and newest member to Georgia’s State Election Board, said.
Many MAGA supporters have questioned the validity of the ballots, which were kept in the warehouse after a Georgia judge ordered them indefinitely preserved during ongoing litigation.
Georgia Democrats quickly denounced the raid as part of Trump’s frivolous efforts to boast claims of election fraud costing him the 2020 election.
“After losing Georgia in 2020, Donald Trump demanded state officials ‘find’ votes to change the outcome, tried to use Department of Justice to overturn it, and spread conspiracy theories that led to the Jan. 6 sacking of the U.S. Capitol,” Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff said in a statement.
“I suspect today’s raid is a continuation of this sore loser’s crusade, despite repeated audits and independent reviews confirming that Donald Trump was indeed defeated.”
Fulton County is also where Trump became the first U.S. president to be criminally charged for illegally interfering with the election and conspiring with his allies to try and change its outcome.
While the charges were ultimately dismissed this past November following Trump’s return to office, he has continued asserting his baseless claims, most recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week.
“People will soon be prosecuted for what they did,” he said. “That’s probably breaking news.” It’s unclear whether his remarks were related to the search warrant executed Wednesday.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who infamously refuted Trump’s request to “find” enough votes for him to win in January 2021 and is running for governor, has yet to comment on the raid.
He has upheld the state’s election results through a statewide audit and two recounts, including a hand count of nearly 5 million ballots. Courts have also rejected challenges brought by Trump and his allies.
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