One week before the FBI raid of the Fulton County elections office to gather information on the 2020 election, members of the Georgia State Election Board questioned the county for alleged mismanagement of voter registration rolls. 

State officials have been demanding answers from Fulton County election staff about ongoing matters such as double voter registrants and voters registered at stores or other public locations.

The FBI is reportedly investigating the potential violation of two federal laws, one of which makes it illegal for election officials to either intimidate voters or submit fraudulent ballots or voter registration applications. The other law requires officials to keep federal election records for 22 months.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas signed the search warrant for the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center. 

“The FBI is conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity. No other information is available at this time,” the FBI National Press Office said in an email. 

Fulton County spokeswoman Regina Waller issued a statement Wednesday confirming the FBI raid. 

“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center. The warrant sought a number of records related to 2020 elections,” Waller said in an email to The Daily Signal Wednesday. “This operation is still actively underway. We cannot provide further information at this time.”

On Thursday, The Daily Signal contacted Waller as well as Fulton County Elections Director Nadine Williams, county elections board Chairwoman Sherri Allen, and three other members of the elections board. None immediately responded. 

A State Elections Board meeting in December found that 315,000 mail-in votes were improperly certified in Fulton County in 2020 because polling workers did not sign off on the tabulation. 

President Donald Trump, who lost the state of Georgia to former President Joe Biden in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes, has claimed the election in Georgia and other closely-contested states was stolen. 

The Georgia State Election Board was already seeking answers from Fulton County Elections personnel. Several members expressed frustration at the Jan. 21 meeting that the county only sent one staffer who did not have answers to most of their questions. 

Among those with questions was the board’s vice chair, Janice Johnston. 

“It’s unclear what the county is doing to address the ineligible voter registrations,” Johnston told The Daily Signal before the FBI raid. “The latest information from the Election Assistance Commission survey last year [said] that the total number of registered voters is higher than the voting eligible population by 115%.”

The State Election Board is reviewing complaints that residents are registered more than once in the county, that more than 1,000 residents have non-residential addresses, and that at least three registered voters have birthdays listed on Jan. 1, 1900. 

“There was a complaint about a possible double voter. As part of that, the board is asking about the voter rolls,” Johnston said. 

The complaints were submitted by Jason Frazier, a Fulton County resident and chairman of the election integrity action group with the Georgia Republican Assembly, a conservative advocacy group. 

“There are people registered at UPS stores or FedEx stores. Some are registered at a MARTA station,” Frazier told The Daily Signal ahead of the FBI raid this week. 

In addition to the birthdays with the year 1900, he found about 500 registered voters that had no birthday. 

“It could be that Fulton County is incompetent rather than nefarious,” Frazier said. “Or the county could be nefarious, which is why it hired incompetent people.”

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