DOJ sues Fulton County over 2020 voter data

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is running for governor next year, has long maintained that the state’s 2020 and 2024 election results were secure, fair and valid.

The Department of Justice is suing Fulton County, Georgia and its election clerk over the county’s refusal to hand over voter records, part of a larger nationwide project to collect as much election and voter information as possible from state and local governments ahead of the 2026 and 2028 elections.

In a lawsuit announced Thursday, DOJ officials said they were suing Fulton County clerk of courts Ché Alexander, arguing that Alexander had a legal duty under the Civil Rights Act to hand over the information as the Department investigates what it claims are potential county violations of the National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act.

In court documents filed with the Northern District of Georgia, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and Eric Neff, Acting Chief of the division’s voting rights section, argued that the court should not “adjudicate the factual foundation for, or the sufficiency of, the Attorney General’s ‘statement” or “the basis and the purpose’ contained in the written demand.”  They also argued the court should not scrutinize the scope of the data requested in the subpoena.

“The Attorney General need only show that she made a ‘written demand’ for records covered by Section 301 of the [Civil Rights Act] and that ‘the person against whom an order for production is sought … has failed or refused” to make such papers available for inspection, reproduction or copying,” wrote Dhillon and Neff.

In October, DOJ subpoenaed the county for “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.” It cited a request from the Georgia State Election Board to investigate “anomalies” in the 2020 election and the refusal of county officials to hand over the data or respond to federal demands.

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