The Department of Justice is seeking to obtain voting materials from the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, Georgia — the same county where President Donald Trump was criminally charged in connection with a scheme to overturn the state’s election results.
DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sued the Fulton County clerk of courts Friday, asking for the county to provide “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files” from the 2020 presidential election.
The lawsuit, which comes after Republicans on Georgia’s election board subpoenaed Fulton County for the same records earlier this year, marks a significant heightening of Trump’s ongoing falsely held belief that voting in Georgia during the 2020 election was illegitimate.
Justice Department sues four US states, one county over voting records
The Justice Department cited laws it said allow the attorney general to demand statewide voter registration lists and to ensure states have proper and effective voter registration and voter list maintenance programs.
“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.
“If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration does not have a legal right to the requested information, which included unredacted voter data such as full names, birthdays, addresses, and state driver’s license numbers.
“We will not hand over Coloradans’ sensitive voting information to Donald Trump," Griswold said in a statement.