You’d think after five years, Fulton County would have a straight answer about what happened to the 2020 election ballots. But judging from the fireworks at Friday’s Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections meeting, transparency is still a foreign concept in Atlanta. What should’ve been a simple yes-or-no question about the location of the 2020 ballots turned into a public meltdown between board members.
Republican board member Julie Adams asked the question everyone’s been wondering: “Do we have the 2020 ballots?” That’s it. Straightforward. The kind of question any election official should be able to answer without needing a lawyer, a script, or divine intervention. But before Elections Director Nadine Williams could even open her mouth, Chairwoman Sherri Allen snapped, “Miss Williams, do not answer that.” She claimed the matter was “in litigation,” which is bureaucrat-speak for “we’d rather not say.”
Adams pushed back, pointing out that it wasn’t actually in litigation and that as a board member, she’s entitled to know where the county’s election records are. Williams finally gave an answer, but with the attitude of someone who resents having to explain herself. She said the ballots are “in the possession of the Clerk of Superior Court,” stored in a warehouse. She even added, with clear irritation, that they’ve “been there for five years.” When Adams noted she’d been told otherwise, Williams accused her of lying. The whole thing spiraled into an embarrassing display of tension, hostility, and excuses.
Here’s the bottom line: Fulton County has been under scrutiny for years over how it handled the 2020 election, and this exchange makes it obvious that the people in charge would rather shut down questions than provide clear answers. Chairwoman Allen’s attempt to silence discussion was telling. If everything is supposedly “by the book,” why is a basic question about ballot custody treated like a state secret?
The situation isn’t happening in a vacuum either. The Department of Justice is now investigating Fulton County’s handling of those very ballots after receiving a formal request from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. DOJ officials Ed Martin and Harmeet Dhillon have both requested access to about 148,000 absentee ballots and envelopes stored in the county’s warehouse. The Georgia State Election Board also subpoenaed those same materials months ago, and yet Fulton County still hasn’t complied.
What’s worse, watchdog group VoterGA has been waiting over a thousand days to inspect the ballots, even after the Georgia Supreme Court sent their case back to the lower court nearly three years ago. It’s almost as if Fulton County’s strategy is to wait everyone out until nobody’s watching.
Adams, to her credit, made it clear she wants full cooperation with both the DOJ and the State Election Board. She said it herself: “If everything’s right, they’ll just say everything’s right, and it’ll be great.” That’s a fair point. The only people who act defensive when asked for transparency are the ones with something to hide.
Whether those ballots are sitting untouched in a warehouse or buried under another pile of bureaucratic stonewalling, one thing is certain: the people of Georgia deserve straight answers. Every time Fulton County officials get cagey about the 2020 election records, it just reinforces why so many Americans have lost faith in the integrity of our elections. It shouldn’t take subpoenas, court orders, and federal investigations to find out where the ballots are.
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