REPORT
OF THE ELECTION LAW
STUDY SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE STANDING SENATE
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
SUMMARY OF TESTIMONY FROM DECEMBER 3, 2020 HEARING
Honorable William T. Ligon, Chairman
Senator, District 3
_______________________________
Honorable John Kennedy, Member
Senator, District 18
_______________________________
Honorable Bill Heath, Member
Senator, District 31
_______________________________
Honorable Blake Tillery, Member
Senator, District 19
_______________________________
Honorable Michael Rhett, Member
Senator, District 33
_______________________________
Honorable Elena Parent, Member
Senator, District 42
_______________________________
I. INTRODUCTION
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
III. ORAL TESTIMONY
IV. FINDINGS
V. RECOMMENDATIONS
I. INTRODUCTION
The charge assigned to the Election Law Study Subcommittee of the Standing Senate Judiciary
Committee was to examine the recent election cycle, the recount process, the audit process,
the current investigations taking place, the litigation that is moving forward, as well as address
issues relating to the upcoming runoffs. In the matter of the law itself, we were to also consider
Georgia’s election laws as they have impacted and are impacting the current election cycle. This
Report may be further amended prior to the 2021 Georgia Legislative Session.
This Subcommittee met once at the Georgia State Capitol on Thursday, December 3, 2020. The
hearing was open to the public, and there was an open invitation for citizens to speak before
the committee. Subcommittee members also expressed stories they had heard from their
constituents. Other committee meetings have also been hearing testimony which should be
considered to present an even broader understanding. At this time, the additional committees
which have met and received testimony are the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and
the House Governmental Oversight Committee. Many who could not testify due to lack of time
have recorded their own testimonies online and shared their written speeches with this
committee; the Subcommittee received many affidavits under oath.
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The November 3, 2020 General Election (the “Election”) was chaotic and any reported results
must be viewed as untrustworthy. The Subcommittee took evidence from witnesses and
received affidavits sworn under oath. The Subcommittee heard evidence that proper protocols
were not used to ensure chain of custody of the ballots throughout the Election, after the
opening of ballots prior to the Election, and during the recounts. The Subcommittee heard
testimony that it was possible or even likely that large numbers of fraudulent ballots were
introduced into the pool of ballots that were counted as voted; there is no way of tracing the
ballots after they have been separated from the point of origin. The Subcommittee heard
testimony of pristine ballots whose origin looked suspicious or which could not be verified and
the inability of poll workers to distinguish between test ballots and absentee ballots. Signatures
were not consistently verified according to law in the absentee balloting process.
Poll watchers on Election Night testified that they had noted that ballots were not secured, that
seals and security tags were not used, and the chain of custody was often lax or non-existent.
During the recount process, the monitors observed similar patterns of unsecured ballots that
had broken seals and open cases of ballots laying around for hours or overnight in unsecured
locations. There was a lack of enforcement of the law, sloppy handling of the ballots by those
counting, deliberate covering-up of voting numbers by workers, lack of following the process
during the recount, unsafe handling of military ballots, and insecure data such as on laptops
and flash drives. According to submitted testimony, there were also many equipment failures
when ballots would not go through the machines and other times when ballots were counted
more than once.
A great deal of testimony supported evidence of a coordinated effort to prevent a transparent
process of observing the counting of ballots during the absentee ballot opening period and on
Election Night. Witnesses testified to hostility to Republican poll workers during the recount –
directional signage was unavailable, doors were locked, and Republican poll watchers were sent
home early or given menial assignments.
Monitors throughout the state were often kept at an unreasonably long distance – some social
distancing was understandable, but monitors were blocked from having the visual ability to see
what was written on the ballots or to have any meaningful way to check the counting or to
double-check that what was counted was actually assigned to the right candidate. They also
could not observe what was entered into the ARLO system, nor could they be told the count
that was being entered into ARLO. Instead, they were told that those numbers would be totaled
and come back from the Secretary of State’s Office. They were also told not to take pictures,
film, or have other means of acquiring proof of the process that they were experiencing based
on a rule from the State Elections Board. That rule contravenes the spirit and purpose of the
election law.
The Secretary of State’s Office was unresponsive to its hotline. It has been unresponsive to
many who wonder if their vote ever really counted. The office has turned a blind eye to fraud to
the point that it ought to be considered gross negligence.
The Subcommittee did not have time to investigate the numerous publicly reported issues with
the Dominion voting machines. The Subcommittee takes notice of the various publicly reported
functions of the machines and heard evidence that the machines can duplicate fraudulent
ballots to the point that not even trained personnel can tell the difference between a test ballot
and a real ballot. Testimony also suggested that the system responds wirelessly to being reset
from an unknown location as happened with the poll books. The Subcommittee also heard that
Dominion machines can be programmed with algorithms that reallocate votes between
candidates. In addition, the Dominion machines are programmed to count votes using
percentages of whole numbers rather than actual votes, which is a feature incompatible with
the actual voting process. The Subcommittee learned that the history and control of the company that owns the Dominion voting system is unclear and provides serious implications of foreign interference in the U.S. election.
III. ORAL TESTIMONY
Violation of Ballot/Computer Security Procedures During Early Voting and on Election Day
Bridget Thorne, who has nine years’ experience as a poll worker/precinct manager in
Fulton County, worked for five and a half days during early voting as a technician in the
temporary warehouse in the Georgia World Congress Center. Because of positive COVID
tests among Fulton County elections employees, Dominion Software was selected to run
the warehouse. Thorne was disturbed at the lack of ballot security. Test ballots were
printed on the same type of paper (official Rolland Voting paper) as real ballots, but test
ballots were not routinely marked as such or destroyed. Thorne testified she saw a stack
of these ballots almost eight inches tall.
On October 30, when early voting finished at State Farm Arena in Fulton County (the
“State Farm Arena”), Thorne observed 40-50 scanners being brought into the arena and
tens of thousands of ballots being scanned in by random people pulling ballots from
random places – no formal procedure, no oaths, no chain of custody. When Thorne
objected to this haphazard process, a Dominion employee replied, “It’s fine, we have
been doing this all week.” When Thorne left that night, she observed unsecured
suitcases of ballots next to the scanners.
Upon arriving at the State Farm Arena the following morning, Thorne saw that suitcases
of ballots had been piled in a corner and sealed. But there was no restricted access, so
anyone could have removed one or more suitcases. In addition, anyone could have
opened them and resealed them” because “seals were easily accessible.” During the
day, employees brought Thorne other ballots that were found in the warehouse, asking
if they were real or test. She had no way of knowing.
The following night, when Thorne was again working at the warehouse, she observed a
Dominion employee and an Election Group Consultant printing “test ballots” but doing
so incorrectly. She realized then that “anyone in the warehouse had access to printing
real ballots.”
Before Election Day, Thorne attempted to report her concerns about these insecure
ballot operations to the Secretary of State (SOS) office and to the State Board of
Elections; she received no response.
Since giving her testimony to the Senate Subcommittee, Bridget Thorne has been fired
by a consultant working for Fulton County.
Recount: Counting Votes Without Monitoring, or Without Meaningful Monitoring
Election Day – Video from State Farm Arena in Fulton County showed a Fulton County
Election worker approaching the media and poll monitors. After a brief exchange, the
media and monitors packed up and left. This coincided with media reports that
everyone was told to leave State Farm Arena around 10 p.m. on Election Night; workers
testified they were told that tabulation was stopping for the night and would resume
the next morning. Instead, video from State Farm Arena revealed that about six workers
stayed behind. What happened next revealed a coordinated effort by election workers
to deliberately conceal their continued counting of ballots out of public view, in direct
violation of the law. This incident was premeditated. Those workers pulled out four
concealed cases of ballots from under a table and continued counting for another two
hours. During those two hours there were multiple machines running, each of which
could process up to 3000 ballots per hour. A “representative” of The Secretary of
State’s office claimed that it had a representative present during that period, and the
media reported that statement widely; it was not true. The representative admitted he
was not present during that time period and is not evident on the video.
David Cross, though unable to speak at the hearing due to time constraints, submitted
written testimony with graphs, one of which appears to enhance the significance of
what took place with the change in vote totals just after the late-night activities took
place at State Farm Arena. Due to its significance to the State Farm Arena video seen by
the committee, his graph is included with this Report. It shows that 136,155 votes
suddenly appeared in Biden’s vote column at 1:59 a.m., November 4, 2020.
Scott Hall of Fulton County is an experienced poll watcher who testified that there was a
secured “lunch area” but when he bought lunch for workers, they were not permitted to
use that area. There were no cameras in that area, yet tables were set up for counting,
and poll watchers were excluded. He has photographs of the area. He also testified
that there were stacks and stacks of unsecured blank ballots (“checks,” as he called
them) that were in the open.
Mr. Hall noted a limitation of one monitor per 10 recounting tables as being an
inadequate ratio to be truly effective. He was constantly engaged in the recount, even
being called to go to the World Congress Center at ridiculous hours, such as 10 p.m., for
more counting. He was adamant that something was seriously wrong with how Fulton
County was handling the ballots.
Mark Amick reported that in DeKalb County, only one monitor was allowed per 10
tables of 16 recounters. He testified that monitors were kept six feet away and could
not see the totals entered on the computer screens.
At State Farm Arena at the end of the recount day on November 14, Susan Voyles of
Sandy Springs observed pallets of ballots remaining to be counted beginning the
following day. When she arrived the next morning, November 15, those pallets were
gone.
On November 15, Voyles and her partner with whom she had traveled to State Farm
Arena (also identified as a Republican), were given only 60 ballots to review, even
though other tables had thousands. Voyles and her partner, as well as other Republican
monitors, were told at 10 a.m. there was nothing else for them to do, so they should
leave. Since giving her testimony to the Senate Subcommittee, Susan Voyles has been
fired by a consultant working for Fulton County.
Tony Burrison of Savannah and a military veteran served as one of very few recount
observers during the recount in Chatham County. He described the process as
“disgusting” – stacks of ballots were being counted with no oversight or accountability.
Based on what he observed, he believed there is a major problem with voting integrity
due to tampering with the vote.
Nancy Kain of DeKalb reported that she was kept too far from the counting to verify any
votes.
Hal Soucie of Smyrna, a poll watcher at State Farm Arena, testified that he was told that
he was not supposed to be close enough to see batch numbers.
No Chain of Custody
Annette Davis Jackson, a Gwinnett monitor, saw broken locks on the bins containing
paper backup ballots.
Scott Hall of Fulton County was told to leave the World Congress Center after he tried to
document and photograph nine unsecured bags of ballots. He testified he “cried” over
the incidents he saw.
Dana Smith, a Republican poll watcher in Hart County, testified that she observed the
paper backup ballots being placed in unlocked canvas bags for transport to the county
office of the Elections Supervisor. The precinct manager finally (at Smith’s insistence)
obtained locks before transporting the bags in her car, but she refused to complete
chain-of-custody forms. Smith also testified that there was open access to the special
paper used to print the paper backup ballots.
Hal Soucie observed the recount process in two counties, Cobb and Fulton. At State
Farm Arena in Fulton County, he reported “suitcases” full of ballots “all over the place,”
with no chain-of-custody procedures, no time and no date information. He observed
people taking ballots out of the cases, counting, and putting them right back into the
cases. No one checked him in as a credentialed observer, and one man handed him a
stack of ballots without knowing who he was or where the ballots came from.
Suspicious “Pristine” Absentee Ballots
At the State Farm Arena recount on November 14, Susan Voyles – who has 20 years’
experience managing election precincts in Fulton County – reviewed a stack of 110
absentee ballots [ballots are normally placed in stacks of 100] and noticed they were
“pristine.” They had not been folded, and they did not appear worn as though voters
and election workers had handled them. Each ballot was “bubbled in” with exactly the
same marking, which showed a small crescent of white in the bubble. It appeared as
though one ballot had been marked and then reproduced over 100 times. In addition,
one of these ballots bore the distinctive ink markings of having been pulled from a
printer too soon. Almost all of these ballots were votes for Vice President Biden; only
two were for President Trump. In her 20 years of election experience, Voyles had never
seen any ballots like these. As noted above, Ms. Voyles has been fired from her position
as a poll manager with Fulton County, presumably for her honest testimony.
Hal Soucie, who was also at the State Farm Arena, verified that he saw the pristine
ballots mentioned by Ms. Voyles.
During the recount, Scott Hall of Fulton County saw large quantities of ballots at the
World Congress Center that appeared to have been machine-produced. He stated that
he saw this “over and over.” The Subcommittee received evidence that other poll
workers throughout the State reported similar instances of “pristine” ballots with no
explicable origin.
Duplication of Ballots Without Oversight
Nancy Kain, a naturalized citizen in DeKalb County, volunteered as a poll watcher for
Advance Voting at lower Roswell Road, served as a poll monitor during processing of
absentee ballots and as a poll watcher on Election Day. At 10 a.m. on November 5, at
the State Farm Arena, she was not asked for credentials and noticed that many people
did not even have credentials. She observed a young man with paper ballots putting in
selections on a ballot on a voting machine and wondered why it was not going through
the scanner. The supervisor explained that the military ballots are transcribed in proper
format and ballots come in that they were trying to salvage because of damage, thus
they were just transferring them to a new ballot, and that was the process. Yet, no one
was there to verify what the young man was doing. He was the brother of the
supervisor. Technically, he was voting for someone else on a voting machine. She took
video and photographs and recorded her conversation with the supervisor.
Mark Amick observed the processing of Provisional, Military and UOCAVA ballots in
Fulton County on November 6 from early morning until 10:15 p.m. The only “oversight”
provided was from a Secretary of State (SOS) employee who was not seen in the area
before mid-morning, and who spent much of day not observing the duplication and
tabulation process but rather sitting in the back of the room and leaving the room while
on his phone. The first time Amick saw the SOS employee on the counting/sorting floor
was 5:53 p.m. By 6:02 p.m. he had returned to his chair at the back of the room, and he
did not go back onto the counting/sorting floor by the time Amick left at 10:15 p.m.
Denial of Entry to Election Day Poll Watchers and During Recount
Mark Amick, a credentialed Statewide Poll Watcher in Milton (Fulton County), was
denied entry into the Birmingham Falls Elementary School precinct despite his statewide
credentials. The Subcommittee has also received evidence from monitors that some of
them were denied entrance during the recount.
Hostility
Hale Soucie of Symrna testified that Cobb County was using an electronic counting
machine on the first day to count ballots, which was not the approved way to do the
recount. The next day, it was the hand count process. He stated that on his second day
he immediately observed that the first auditor made three mistakes in two minutes
calling three ballots marked for Trump as Biden votes, but the second auditor caught
those mistakes. He noticed another table that was not even doing a double-check at all.
When he sought to observe, he was met with great hostility and vulgar name calling
directed at him. The Subcommittee received other evidence of hostility against the
monitors.
Wildly Disparate Vote Totals from the Recount
While observing the recount at the DeKalb County Board of Elections on November 15,
Mark Amick saw that a box of ballots was recorded as 10,707 votes for Biden and 13
votes for President Trump. He flagged this obvious disparity to the election workers,
who discussed among themselves how it came to be. Two election officials with whom
he engaged about this issue became agitated with Amick for his continued monitoring of
the situation. They finally agreed to recount the box, resulting in a revised total of 1,081
votes for Vice President Biden and 13 for President Trump – still statistically disparate,
but 9,626 votes less so. Amick was not certain if the corrected count was actually
entered into the final recount totals.
At State Farm Arena during the recount, Susan Voyles also noted a stack of absentee
ballots with only two votes for President Trump.
Hal Soucie of Smyrna, while monitoring in State Farm Arena, noticed stacks of ballots
quite high, such as eight inches high for Biden, yet not a single Trump vote. He stated
that he works with data and marketing, and anytime figures start reaching the 90th
percentile, that type of consumer data is suspect, and when it gets to 100 percent that is
passing the level of improbable to impossible.
Ballots Counted from Ineligible Voters
Mark Davis analyzed data from U.S. Postal Service change-of-address (COA) forms and
compared it to voters who voted in their former precincts. For example, he discovered
that 14,980 out-of-state movers still voted in the Georgia General Election. Another
40,279 moved across county lines more than 30 days prior to the election, yet still voted
in their former county precincts, a violation of Georgia law. He also noted that about
1,000 voters had voted twice in the Primary, inferring that the same pattern could have
existed in the General Election.
Constitutional Violations of Duly Passed Law
Dr. John C. Eastman, former Professor of Law and former Dean of the Chapman
University Fowler School of Law and current Fellow at the Claremont Institute, testified
regarding the plenary authority of the legislative body of the States to set the “Times,
Places and Manner” of elections involving Federal officials, including with respect to the
selection of Electors for the Electoral College in the presidential election, citing Article I,
Section 4 and Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. He noted that when States
have vested that authority in the people of their States that they are bound to follow
the people’s choice in a free and fair election, but where fraud and failure to follow the
law as passed by the legislative body is evident, that authority can be withdrawn. The
legislature then can exercise its plenary authority to choose the electors in a presidential
contest. He referenced both Bush v. Gore and McPherson v. Blacker as authoritative.
Professor Eastman further explained that the failure of State election officials to follow
the manner of conducting the election according to the statutes duly passed by the
legislative body can annul an election. The U.S. Constitution clearly gives State
legislatures under Article I, Section 4 the duty to determine the “manner” of federal
elections, and that power rests solely with the State legislatures unless Congress passes
its own laws that preempt State election laws. There is no provision which allows any
Executive branch member to modify, set aside, enhance, or otherwise create policies or
procedures which undermine or contravene those laws.
He noted various ways State election officials had failed to follow the statutes in
conducting the election. He reiterated failures such as counting the votes of
approximately 66,000 underage individuals, the 2,500 felons whose votes were
unlawfully counted, the votes of those who had no verifiable residences within the
State, and the “biggest” of all he believed was the March 2020 settlement agreement
that was entered into with Georgia’s Secretary of State and “certain democrat
committee challengers that effectively altered the signature verification process” with
regard to Absentee Ballots, an agreement that was contrary to State law. He further
noted that the “intermingling of legal and illegal ballots” also meant that the election
cannot legally be certified. “The State has failed to make a choice on Election Day in
accordance with the manner” the legislature prescribed. In light of the failures, the
fraud, and the unconstitutional agreement, Dr. Eastman opined that it was the duty of
the legislative body to choose the State’s Electors for the presidential election.
Data Analysis in General and Dominion Issues
Russell J. Ramsland, Jr., a cybersecurity expert from Texas, testified that his team had
compared data from Dominion voting machines in those places where they were used
around the nation. They discovered that with Dominion machines, Vice President Biden
outperformed what he was statistically expected to receive by an “amazing” 5%. He also
outperformed statistical expectations when the analysis was run by county, with Vice
President Biden picking up 78% of Dominion counties but only 46% of counties using
machines from other manufacturers. Depending on the type of analysis performed,
Ramsland estimated that these anomalies translated to between 123,000 and 136,000
extra votes for Vice President Biden in Georgia.
Ramsland also found that the rejection rate for absentee ballots in Georgia was much
lower in 2020 (0.2%) than in 2016 (6.4%). He also identified over 96,000 phantom votes,
meaning that they had been counted, but there was no record of the counties recording
those ballots as “received.”
Phil Waldron, a former U.S. Army information officer with expertise in electronic
warfare, identified a “pretty significant information warfare campaign” conducted
across the country during the Election. He described the history of the Dominion and
other voting machines, with the operating software sharing the same “DNA” going back
to Smartmatic, which was created to help steal elections in Venezuela.
Waldron analyzed these machines in Michigan and found them extremely insecure. He
said a good hacker could get into them within two minutes, while an elementary-school
student could probably do it in twelve. There are 12 avenues of attack. Dominion also
sends voter data outside the United States.
Waldron discussed fractional voting. Waldron testified that the Dominion software used
in the Georgia machines assigns a fractional value to each vote; there is no legitimate
purpose in assigning an elector’s vote as a fractional vote. That feature can allow the
manipulation of election results.
Waldron said federal law (USC Title 46) requires that the ballot images within the
machine are required to be preserved for 22 months, but only a forensic analysis would
show if this was done. Each machine can record 2,000-3,000 ballots per hour. His
Michigan analysis showed “huge breaches in chain of custody” with respect to the
machines and to absentee ballots. In Georgia, there was an unexplained upload of
ballots at 3:36 a.m. on November 4.
Waldron urged a full forensic audit of the machines and of absentee ballots (for
example, ink analysis would show if ballots were mass-produced).
Scott Hall of Fulton County stated that when he worked at the English Street facility that
he had concerns about the contractors hired there. He noted that every vote in Fulton
County ends up on thumb drives that eventually find their way to the English Street
location. He said, “I have photographs of pallet loads of basically signed checks.” “So
you’ve got every single vote, you’ve got currency, and now you just need someone to do
it.” He said he hired one of his own guys to determine if a fraudulent vote could be
recorded on the Dominion machines at that point in the process. “Now, I’ve got all
these votes that have not been uploaded anywhere. And he actually wrote me a paper,
and he said that it was the ‘stupidest, simplest thing I’ve ever seen.’ He said,
‘Dominion’s own documentation shows how you take an entire batch, swipe it off, and
then swipe on a new batch, before you put it into the real-time reader that uploads.” He
summed up the voter fraud by using the analogy that the referee got paid off to call the
game and something is very wrong.
Outside Influence Over Governmental Election Functions
Scott Walter from the Capitol Research Group testified about Mark Zuckerberg’s Center
for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), a progressive advocacy group that seeks to
influence elections via voter “education” and get-out-the-vote efforts. In the 2020
election, CTCL made grants to individual counties, in Georgia and elsewhere, ostensibly
to help run safe elections during COVID. But county boards could use the money for
whatever they wanted, and the bulk of the grants (95% of total funding) went to
counties that voted for Clinton in 2016 and for Biden in 2020. In fact, nine of the 10
Georgia counties that experienced the largest shifts toward Democrats in 2020 received
CTCL grants — $4.38-$10.47 spent per each man, woman, and child in those counties.
Georgia should not allow “privatized” elections via the organization that the Washington
Post has called the “Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry.”
Voters Unable to Verify Votes Counted
Grace Lennon, a student at Georgia Tech, hoped to early vote on October 23. When she
arrived, she was told that she had been sent an absentee ballot. She never received an
absentee ballot. She had to sign an affidavit saying that she had not requested nor had
she received an absentee ballot. She was then given a voter card to vote on the
machine. However, the next day, she learned that someone had voted absentee in her
name on October 7th. She was not able to verify that her vote actually counted for the
one she chose to select in the election or whether the absentee ballot counted instead.
Senator Greg Dolezal confirmed that most all the Senators had heard many similar
stories.
V. FINDINGS
1– The November 3, 2020 election was chaotic and the results cannot be trusted.
2– The Secretary of State and the State Elections Board failed to enforce the law as written
in the Georgia Code, and furthermore, created policies that contravened State law. As
Senator Matt Brass concluded at the December 3 hearing, “We have heard evidence
that State law was not followed, time after time after time.”
3– The Secretary of State failed to have a transparent process for the verification of
signatures for absentee ballots, for the counting of votes during the subsequent recount
and audit, and for providing the type of guidance and enforcement necessary to ensure
that monitors and other observers had meaningful access to the process.
4– The Secretary of State instituted an unconstitutional gag order so that monitors were
told not to use photography or video recording devices during the recount.
5– Election officials at all levels failed to secure test ballots and actual ballots. Many reports
indicate that proper procedures were not followed, and there was systematic failure to
maintain appropriate records of the chain of custody for these ballots, both prior to and
after voting and throughout the recount.
6– The Secretary of State and Election Supervisors failed to stop hostile behavior of
workers toward citizen volunteer monitors during the recount process.
7– The events at the State Farm Arena are particularly disturbing because they
demonstrated intent on the part of election workers to exclude the public from viewing
the counting of ballots, an intentional disregard for the law. The number of votes that
could have been counted in that length of time was sufficient to change the results of
the presidential election and the senatorial contests. Furthermore, there appears to be
coordinated illegal activities by election workers themselves who purposely placed
fraudulent ballots into the final election totals.
8– Grants from private sources provided financial incentives to county officials and exerted
influence over the election process.
9– The oral testimonies of witnesses on December 3, 2020, and subsequently, the written
testimonies submitted by many others, provide ample evidence that the 2020 Georgia
General Election was so compromised by systemic irregularities and voter fraud that it
should not be certified.
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Absentee Ballots
In addition to following the law as already written by the legislature, such as
not opening absentee ballots until Election Day, additional steps should be
taken to ensure that only legal absentee votes are counted.
At a minimum, these recommendations include requiring photo
identification, following signature match procedures faithfully, allowing
absentee ballots to be used only upon demonstration of need, mailing
absentee ballots out only upon the request of the registered voter, and
although already illegal, expressly prohibiting drop boxes.
B. Secure Chain of Custody and Additional Security Measures
Procedures should be established to ensure proper chain of custody for all
ballots, whether they are test ballots, new unused ballots, spoiled ballots,
cast BMD-generated ballots, absentee ballots, and even the specialty paper
that is used to print the ballots.
Penalties should be clearly known and enforced for any violations.
There should be complete security when workers go on the job, with sign-in
of their names and a time stamp, when they go in and when they go out.
Cameras should also be on-site to monitor the process at all times, as well as
all the entrances to the buildings where ballots and the ballot paper are
stored.
C. Meaningful Access for Poll Watchers and Monitors
Citizens who are seeking to ensure the integrity of the vote need to be able
to truly see the process. They should be able to ensure that people are
reading their ballots before they are cast. They should be able to inspect the
signature match process when ballots are opened. They should be able to
write down seal information so they can ensure proper custody is in place.
They should be close enough to see the names on the ballots during any
recounts, the counts written on recount report sheets, the counts going into
the ARLO system, the counts written on ballot containers, the process of the
seals being broken as the ballots are entering the process, and so forth.
More poll watchers and monitors should be allowed to participate since the
ratio needs to be improved. Objections by monitors should be addressed
immediately on-site to ensure access and transparency.
Hostile actions by election workers toward volunteers should be
immediately addressed and should be cause for dismissal.
D. No Unconstitutional Gag Orders
There is no reason to ban cameras when tabulation is taking place or when
recounts and audits are taking place.
Furthermore, there is no reason to ban cameras at the polling booth as long
as voters have privacy while voting.
The State Board of Elections should not ban cameras and recording
equipment. They must fulfill their duty to ensure a transparent election
process. Furthermore, citizens have a right to share those photos,
recordings, and thoughts about what they observe.
E. Unqualified Voters Should Be Purged from the System
No underage voters should be in the system to allow their votes. No felons
should be in the system to allow their votes.
Other categories of voters, such as the deceased and those who have moved
out of state, should also be examined as to their continued presence on the
voter rolls.
F. Violations of State Election Laws Must Be Prosecuted
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (“GBI”) and the Attorney General
should aggressively investigate and prosecute those who violate election
laws, including those conspiring to place fraudulent ballots into the system
and the 1,000 persons identified by the Secretary of State who voted twice
in the 2020 primaries. If prosecutions do not happen, violations will recur.
The GBI should establish an independent office for the investigation of all
claims of voter fraud. That office should report regularly to the Judiciary
Committee and, except in the case of investigations involving the Secretary
of State or its personnel, the office of the Secretary of State.
The GBI should investigate the cases where many affidavits already exist
regarding election fraud in the 2020 General Election.
G. Forensic Audits of Ballots and Machines
The Legislature must determine if ballot marking devices (BMDs) have been
manipulated to provide a fraudulent result and without regard to whether
the forensic audits can actually identify the manipulation of votes and the
authenticity of the ballots that are in the ballot boxes, either generated by
the BMDs or those that are absentee ballots.
Independent third-party auditors should review the fiducials on all ballots
types (absentee, military, machine generated), audit the absentee ballot
results from the last election, confirm the number of external envelopes in
each county, and the number of ballots for each county.
Such audits should help ensure that phantom ballots and other fraudulent
ballots are not counted in election results, and that legal votes are the only
votes counted.
H. For Rectifying the 2020 General Election Results
The Legislature should carefully consider its obligations under the U.S.
Constitution. If a majority of the General Assembly concurs with the
findings of this report, the certification of the Election should be rescinded
and the General Assembly should act to determine the proper Electors to be
certified to the Electoral College in the 2020 presidential race. Since time is
of the essence, the Chairman and Senators who concur with this report
recommend that the leadership of the General Assembly and the Governor
immediately convene to allow further consideration by the entire General
Assembly.
Respectfully submitted this the 30th day of December 2020.
