A grand jury met in Atlanta Tuesday morning at the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder
ATLANTA — Fulton County officials are trying to stop the U.S. Department of Justice from gaining access to the private information of nearly 3,000 Georgians who served as election workers and volunteers during the 2020 presidential election.
The Justice Department is demanding Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections to turn over the names, positions, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of all county election workers and volunteer poll workers who assisted with the 2020 general election. A court summons was signed by Northern District of Georgia Clerk of Court Kevin P. Weimer on April 17 and made public in a court filing this week.
On Monday, Fulton County’s lawyers moved to block the Justice Department’s request, arguing in a 27-page motion that the subpoena was intended “to target, harass, and punish the President’s perceived political opponents,” and could make poll workers less likely to participate in future elections.
The county’s motion also pointed out that the statute of limitations for any election-related crimes committed in 2020 has expired, meaning no criminal prosecutions could come from the data.
The grand jury met in Atlanta Tuesday morning, but no one attended on behalf of the county, said Michael O’Connor, deputy chief of staff for Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts. O’Connor added that Fulton officials would not be turning over any data until a judge ruled on their motion.
Fulton County, which is home to much of the city of Atlanta, was also at the center of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia, despite two recounts that affirmed former President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state. Previous investigations into the 2020 election did not find any merit to the claims of rampant voting fraud or intentional misconduct by Fulton election workers and leaders.
Pitts condemned the Department of Justice’s attempt to obtain poll workers’ personal information, arguing that the federal government was exceeding its authority.
“This is yet another act of outrageous federal overreach designed to intimidate and to chill participation in elections,” Pitts said in a statement. “This harassment should not be allowed, so we have asked the Court to act. I will always stand up for our elections workers and for the truth.”
FBI raids Fulton County elections warehouse seeking 2020 ballots
The request for poll workers’ personal information comes months after a January raid on Fulton County’s election hub, which led to roughly 700 boxes of 2020 election documents being seized by the FBI. A lawsuit filed by the county seeking the return of the documents is pending in federal court.
Gowri Ramachandran, who serves as the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice’s director of elections and security, said the subpoena appeared to be “a fishing expedition or even an attempt to intimidate or harass these workers.”
The subpoena, she added, also seems to be part of a broader push from the Trump administration to nationalize elections, which are currently administered by the states under the U.S. Constitution.
“Fulton County is one of the targets of this campaign to not only re-litigate the 2020 election, which is long over, but create some sort of excuse to interfere in elections broadly,” Ramachandran said.
Department of Justice officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment Tuesday.
