FBI Raid Of Fulton County Over Election Data Came After Long Fight
The FBI’s raid last week on the Fulton County Election Hub in Georgia marked the climax of a more than year-long confrontation over access to 2020 election records, a dispute that repeatedly stalled state investigators and raised persistent questions about transparency, according to a detailed review of events leading up to the search.
The conflict began as a disagreement between the Georgia State Election Board and Fulton County election officials over the availability, custody, and completeness of voting records from the 2020 presidential election. At issue were absentee ballot documents, ballot images, signature envelopes, and related data connected to alleged anomalies in vote tabulation and record retention. The Daily Signal reported that the state board issued subpoenas in both 2024 and 2025 seeking access to those materials.
Fulton County officials have consistently denied claims that records were missing or mishandled. However, portions of the requested information remained under seal in state court proceedings, effectively delaying the state’s investigation for months. In late October 2025, the State Election Board issued a second subpoena. Two months later, state officials acknowledged that more than 130 tabulator tapes documenting early in-person voting lacked the required signatures from election workers.
In January, a Georgia-based group known as the Election Oversight Group released a 236-page report examining the 2020 ballot count in Fulton County. The report gained renewed national attention this week after the Election Integrity Network published a three-page summary tying its findings to the FBI raid, according to the outlet.
The Election Oversight report states that Fulton County counted 148,319 absentee ballots in the 2020 General Election, while official records show only 125,784 voters documented as having cast an absentee ballot. The discrepancy suggests that more than 22,000 absentee ballots were counted without a corresponding voter record.
The report further notes that by the close of polls on Nov. 3, 2020, approximately 74,000 absentee ballots had been recorded. Four days later, that number had ballooned to more than 148,000. According to the findings, only 16,032 ballot images retained a matching unique “fingerprint” authentication file, while 132,286 of those authentication files were deleted.
“The information in this report documents in one place, in a comprehensive manner and exacting detail, the complete mess of an election that took place in Georgia in November 2020,” Cleta Mitchell, chairwoman of the Election Integrity Network, told The Daily Signal.
“While Fulton County is ground zero for essentially ignoring as many legal requirements as they possibly could, Fulton County is hardly alone in its election malfeasance,” Mitchell added.
The State Election Board first issued a subpoena in November 2024, alleging that documentation was missing for thousands of votes during the recount of the 2020 presidential election. In its letter to Fulton County, the board cited “unexplained anomalies in vote tabulation and storage related to the 2020 election.”
“Our subpoenas are still open. The board’s official stance was to take custody of those documents,” Janice Johnston, vice chairwoman of the State Election Board, told The Daily Signal.
A second subpoena followed in October 2025, demanding all used and void ballots, ballot stubs, signature envelopes, and associated digital files from the 2020 election.
At a State Election Board meeting on Dec. 9, a Fulton County official disclosed that more than 130 tabulator tapes—receipt-like records of vote totals—were missing legally required signatures. Those tapes documented roughly 315,000 early in-person votes from the 2020 election.
With the standoff unresolved, the Georgia board formally requested assistance from the U.S. Department of Justice in July 2025 “to effect compliance with voting transparency.” Attorney General Pam Bondi later sent a letter demanding Fulton County comply with the state subpoenas. Federal officials ultimately filed a civil rights complaint in December 2025, and a judge ruled in a way that allowed the state board to obtain the contested records.
That ruling set the stage for federal action. On Jan. 28, FBI agents executed a court-authorized search warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations Center in Union City, seizing materials connected to the 2020 election as investigators moved to secure records at the center of the long-running dispute.