A fresh lawsuit alleges that the election committee and chairman of Fulton County are allegedly withholding vote records from a GOP board part.
Republican Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections ( BRE ) member Julie Adams filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, claiming that the board and Elections Director Nadine Williams are hindering Adams from “performing her statutory duties as a BRE member” by denying her “access to essential election materials and processes by which elections in Fulton County are conducted.” Adams was appointed in January, and he took office the following quarter.
” Plaintiff swore an oath to ‘ avoid fraud, deceit, and misuse’ in Fulton County elections and to ‘ create a real and great return,'” the lawsuit reads. The repeated and persistent refusal to grant Plaintiff access to and immediate access to the information she fairly believes she needs to carry out her duties faithfully and carefully frustrates these obligations.
Since taking office, Adams has contacted numerous” Elections Materials and Processes” that are related to her place on the BRE. The county’s certified voting list and absentee ballot information two of which are included. The past is a “list of all freely registered electors that are ready to put a poll within a ballot jurisdiction”, and the latter includes the roster” of all electors who requested, received, and/or returned an Absent Ballot” and all” Absent Ballot applications and ballot envelopes”.
The BRE has “exclusive authority to confirm the results of Fulton County elections,” according to the lawsuit. The board’s chief administrative officer may be appointed by the county’s governing body upon the board’s recommendation and be referred to as the “elections supervisor.” This unique” may include such tasks and works in regard to votes as may be prescribed by the table.”
The lawsuit argues that the committee has purportedly delegated key BRE responsibilities to an appointed Election Director, which is why the board is denying Adams access to the above election materials. Plaintiffs claim that” BRE people are not entitled to access the Election Materials and Processes necessary for the performance of their duties” and that they “have taken the position the BRE delegated the constitution given duties and powers of the Fulton County election director to the Director via implementation of the rules.”
According to Adams, however, “despite the request of BRE members, neither the counsel nor the BRE’s staff have been able to produce an official version of the Bylaws, in a form or on a date on which the bylaws were passed”.
The current and former Chairs of the BRE and the Director have refused to let Plaintiff access the Election Materials and Processes as a result of this delegation ( which, as noted above, is unsupported by any official records of the Bylaws being formally adopted by the BRE), the lawsuit claims.
According to the emails contained in the lawsuit, Adams contacted Williams and then-BRE Chair Patrise Perkins-Hocker on March 7 and requested that she have access to the county’s Election Materials and Procedures so she can review them before the board releases the results of the upcoming March 12 Presidential Preference Primary. Williams later that day addressed Adams, noting that the majority of the requested documents would n’t be created until after the primary, that “review of these documents is not required for certification,” and that” conciliation is diligently conducted and completed” by her office before certification.
Perkins-Hocker sent a follow-up email the following evening, instructing Williams to “take no action” on Adams ‘ request “until the board approves making any changes to our existing certification process.” Adams was further informed by the then-BRE chair that she would need to obtain voter registration before accessing the required records.
In the end, Adams voted against the primary results ‘ certification on March 19, arguing that the board’s decision to deny her access to the requested materials prevented her from “inspecting ] systematically and thoroughly the conduct of primaries and elections… so that primaries and elections may be honestly, efficiently, and uniformly conducted.”
In the weeks that followed, Adams ‘ subsequent attempts to obtain the aforementioned records were similarly refrained by Williams. Additionally, the Democrat Party of Georgia addressed a letter to the board claiming that “certification of election results is a ministerial t subject to board members ‘] discretion” and that board members could be held legally accountable for failing to cast a ballot to certify.
Adams has asked the Fulton County Superior Court to issue a declaration asserting that BRE members ‘ duties are “discretionary, not ministerial, in nature”, and that they are authorized to have complete access to the Election Materials and Processes. She also requested that injunctions be issued to prevent defendants from withholding such information from board members and from requiring their disclosure “during and after” Georgia’s May 21 statewide primaries.
It’s not the first time Fulton County has been accused of misconduct. The Georgia State Election Board recently criticized the BRE for breaking election law during the 2020 election, as my colleague Brianna Lyman previously reported.
In a 2- 1 decision, the state board ruled” that Fulton County must have an independent election monitor to oversee its elections after it found more than 3, 000 ballots were scanned twice during the 2020 presidential recount”, as Lyman summarized. The board, however, declined to send the matter to the Georgia attorney general for further investigation.
The Federalist published a press release and lawsuit involving Julie Adams on Scribd.
The Federalist staff writer Shawn Fleetwood graduated from the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClear Health, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
