NEWS PROVIDED BY
VoterGA 
Jan. 20, 2022

ATLANTA, Jan. 20, 2022 /Standard Newswire/ -- VoterGA today announced a new chain of custody study that revealed nearly 107,000 drop box ballots in the November 2020 election results have improper chain of custody forms that call into question the authenticity of those ballots. The study resulted from a statewide analysis of ballot transfer forms obtained via Open Records Requests. 

The findings are preliminary and the number is expected to increase dramatically as more counties acknowledge they cannot produce oaths for collection team members or, admit they have destroyed surveillance videos in spite of federal and state retention laws that require election records to be retained for about two years.

The findings do not include missing forms that have been previously estimated to grow to approximately 355,000. Further, VoterGA discovered that most counties have no records of how many total ballots were collected from drop boxes so there is no way to determine how many ballots were collected when several days' worth of forms are missing.

Specifically, improper chain of custody issues entails violations of State Election Board (SEB) rules or impossible circumstances in the forms. Examples of violations include:

• Chain of custody forms that are unsigned by collection team members
   
• Forms with only one person identified on the pickup team
   
• Forms with no name of who received it at the County Election Center
   
• Forms not received on same day of pickup

Here is a sample list of impossible circumstances:

• Forms with collection times after drop off times
   
• Recorded pickup times for locations too close together to be accurate
   
• Pickups dated before boxes were installed
   
• Pickups on the day after the election

VoterGA also identified massive problems with drop box videos, many of which have been prematurely destroyed by the counties. Those retaining their videos wanted as much as $15,000 for the recordings or could not produce them until months after the election was certified. Even if recordings exist, they are inadequate to detect the content of night-time drop offs because cameras are positioned behind the box and too far away to identify what was deposited into the box.
 
The presentation was made by VoterGA chain of custody team lead, David Hancock. VoterGA co-founder Garland Favorito added: "Our poll watching team recently found that SB202 did not solve the problem. Some poll workers will allow ballot harvesters to drop hundreds of ballots into drop boxes at polling locations. The law and SEB rules must still be changed further and enforced to ensure election integrity."

VoterGA is a non-partisan, 501(c)3 registered non-profit organization created by a coalition of citizens working to restore election integrity in Georgia. We advocate for independently verifiable, auditable, recount capable and transparent elections.

SOURCE VoterGA

CONTACT: Sheryl Sellaway, 404-695-5564, sheryl@righteouspragency.com