South Fulton Today

Fulton County won’t provide the state’s chain of custody records for mail-in ballots until the day before the presidential inauguration.

The county said in a letter to The Georgia Star News on Monday that it wouldn’t be able to provide the materials requested by the news media until Jan. 19, after it had sent an open records request to the county on Dec. 1. 

The news media sent the request, claiming that there were approximately 300 drop boxes across the state that were used to collect absentee ballots.

A law was passed in July that said the states had to complete and sign ballot transfer forms when the ballots were removed from the drop boxes and then immediately transported to the county registrar to be processed and stored.

In its response, Fulton County said that if it could get the records sooner, it would be able to provide them sooner to the news media.

Other counties have responded to the requests, also noting they don’t have the records yet. In Gwinnett County, the county told the news media that it was working on locating the forms. In DeKalb County, Assistant County Attorney at DeKalb County Dexter Q. Bond Jr. told the news media that “it has not yet been determined if responsive records to your request exist.”

The news media notes that Jan. 19 is a full two weeks after the runoff election will take place on Jan. 5 and one day before the presidential inauguration.

In the unofficial election results for Fulton County, Joe Biden is in the lead with 381,144 votes, whereas President Donald Trump has 137,240 votes for a total of 518,384.

During the 2016 election, Trump received 110,372 votes, while Hilary Clinton received 281,875 and there were 14,926 votes for third-party candidates, for a total of 407,173.