The unsealing in Fulton County of about 147,000 absentee ballots scheduled for Friday has been postponed. The judge in the case indicated he needs to review several last-minute motions filed Wednesday night and Thursday morning by the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections to halt the audit proceedings.
After hiring top defense attorneys Donald Samuel and Amanda Palmer, Fulton County, the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections, and the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts all filed motions to dismiss, arguing the plaintiffs failed to properly serve them notice of the suit. With the high-powered Garland, Samuel, and Loeb law firm in Atlanta, the attorneys also allege the plaintiffs sued the wrong people, the defendants are protected under sovereign immunity, and the plaintiffs failed to state a claim that entitles them to court action.
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The defense motions come following a ruling last week by Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero to unseal the absentee ballots in Fulton County from the 2020 presidential election. The ruling granted the petitioner access to the ballots with certain restrictions. As previously reported, Garland Favorito, a voter-integrity advocate with VoterGA, served as a Fulton County tabulation observer in the Nov. 3 election. After repeatedly being ignored following the discovery of an abnormal vote increase for Joe Biden’s vote tabulation and an apparent abnormal reduction in Donald Trump’s vote tabulation, Favorito filed the petition.
While Georgia Assistant Attorney General Charlene McGowan argued that there should be no further audit, but if there is one, it should be done by an independent group, Amero disagreed, stating, “The petitioners would be of the view that they are the ones to defend their own constitutional rights in this suit that they have filed,” adding further:
“[W]hether they have the right to conduct these independent viewings, not a physical inspection, but an inspection nonetheless, a visual inspection, combined with an opportunity to have ballot images at resolution that allows them to pursue their claims, that seems to be something they have the authority and the right to do.”
Senior research scientist with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Lisa Detter-Hoskin, testified for the plaintiffs last Friday. She indicated that a minimum resolution of 600 DPI (dots per inch) scan would be needed to review the ballots properly. This resolution would enable the audit team to inspect for abnormalities such as candidate selection ovals being filled in by machines rather than by hand or mail-in absentee ballots having no folds, as some Fulton County election observers previously allege.
In the new lawsuit, Fulton County officials argued that Fulton County doesn’t have final control over elections, that petitioners aren’t entitled to declaratory judgment, and that petitioners haven’t complied with election contest requirements. Speaking of the latest developments to stop the audit of absentee ballots, lead petitioner Garland Favorito reported to The Epoch Times:
“It seems like a desperation move. The silver lining is that we now have more time to perfect the changes we had to make in our inspection plan.”
A new hearing in front of Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero on these motions is scheduled for June 21 at 9 a.m.
