A contractor handpicked by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to monitor election counting in Fulton County submitted a report back in November outlining the “massive” election integrity failures he witnessed in Atlanta-area election centers.
Incredibly, even after receiving the explosive 29-page memo describing repeated mistakes, and possible fraud in Fulton County,” Raffensperger continued to insist in public that Georgia had “safe, secure, honest elections.”
Just the News’ John Solomon obtained the memo from the contractor, Carter Jones, a consultant for Seven Hill Strategies. The report is written like a minute-by-minute diary detailing everything Jones witnessed from Nov. 2 to Nov. 7, 2020.
As Solomon notes, the report includes serious voter integrity issues, such as “the double-counting of votes, insecure storage of ballots, possible violations of voter privacy, the mysterious removal of election materials at a vote collection warehouse, and the suspicious movement of ‘too many’ ballots on Election Day.”
In one notation written around 4:00 p.m. on Election Day, for instance, Jones warns of what “seems like a massive chain of custody problem,” after observing absentee ballots arriving at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena “in rolling bins 2k at a time.”
“It is my understanding is that the ballots are supposed to be moved in numbered, sealed boxes to protect them,” he wrote, pointing out that these ballots weren’t.
Jones expressed concern over the sheer volume of absentee ballots flowing in. “Too many ballots coming in for secure black ballot boxes,” he wrote.
His report includes an allegation of an election observer who claims to have witnessed a conversation in an elevator in which a temporary worker from a firm called “Happy Faces” revealed his intention to “f-ck sh-t up.”
“I must keep an eye on these two,” Jones wrote. “Perhaps this was a bad joke, but it was very poorly timed in the presence of a poll watcher.”
He wrote that the two suspect workers had been assigned to a “team confirming and boxing ballots that have already been scanned to prepare them for later audit” because “this is the place where they could do least to achieve their declared objective.”
But Jones expressed larger concerns about the temporary staffing agency’s recruitment of workers. “What is Happy Faces doing to vet the people who they are sending to make sure that they are not sending in people who do actually want to ‘f*ck sh*t up?'” he asked.
Spokespersons for Happy Faces did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Fulton County said she would speak to elections personnel that worked with Happy Faces, but she had not responded further as of press time.
Jones’ report also sheds light on Fulton County’s infamous, and highly suspicious ballot processing operation at State Farm Arena on election night.
According to election observers, election officials ordered most election workers to go home at around 10:30 p.m. on election night, and the room was cleared. Surveillance video obtained by President Trump’s legal team later revealed that a few election workers remained behind and continued to count ballots after election observers and media had left. In his report, Jones describes what appears to be the double-scanning of ballots later on that night.
“News reaches warehouse that Sec. Raffensperger ‘ripped’ Fulton just came through the wire (apparently someone asked about Fulton stopping scanning at 10:30 while every other county is still working and Sec. said ‘Fulton can’t get anything right’),” the notes read.
Just before 11:30 p.m., Jones describes in his notes, “confusion about whether or not they’re still scanning at State Farm bc there were reports that the staff there told the rest of the staff and press to leave, but I am still getting number reports.” When he arrives at State Farm Arena about a half an hour later, he finds “staff are still scanning on all five scanners.”
Jones writes that election worker Shaye Moss told him “the media just packed up when I released all the staff opening and sorting ballots.”
He said the scanners were clearing “what had been processed that day instead of interrupting the processing flow to secure the ballots before leaving. Their goal is to hit Ralph’s 100k by
the end of the night.”
He added that the scanners were “jamming more frequently because of the heavy use.”
Jones continues: “Order is starting to break down[.] Ralph newly re-scanned some ballots that had already been processed by Shaye.”
In another instance of double-counting two days after the election, Jones reported that a machine had “shut down because it was causing more problems than it was solving.”
“Double-feeding and cutting through both the envelope and the ballot, which leads to even more duplicates,” he said.
.@JSolomonReports says: GA Sec. of State Raffensperger sent a contractor to Fulton County, who found "twenty-nine pages of errors, mismanagement, mistakes, grotesque running of an election…"#JustTheTruth @JennaEllisEsq pic.twitter.com/afrDkvVK0i
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) June 18, 2021
Raffensperger told Just the News that while he supports the ouster of Fulton County’s top election officials, he still trusts the outcome of the election.
“It is no secret that Fulton has had issues in their elections department for decades, which is why I insisted on a state monitor being present to be eyes and ears on the ground,” he said.
Phill Kline, the head of the Amistad Project, told Just the News that the report shows the same type of election violations seen in multiple other battleground states.
“This reveal chaos caused by incompetence and in some instances willful violation of law in order to assist Mr. Biden,” said Phill Kline. “This is consistent with the evidence we are finding in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan despite efforts at intimidation by Attorney General Garland.”
According to Solomon, Jones did not respond to his repeated requests for comment, but did speak to the Associated Press about his findings shortly after being contacted by him. Jones told the AP that he did not witness “any dishonesty, fraud or intentional malfeasance” among election workers, despite the serious election integrity issues detailed in his report.
He did say however, that Fulton County “needs to address these mismanagement issues because they are becoming serious.”