No, there isn’t a new lawsuit revealing 2020 ballot fraud in Georgia. An old video is recirculating
Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, left, and Garland Favorito talk at the northwest Georgia headquarters for Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia, in Ringgold, Ga., Thursday, April 14, 2022. The Associated Press on Friday, Aug. 25, 2023 reported on social media posts falsely claiming a new lawsuit against voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems has uncovered thousands of “duplicate ballots” in Fulton County, Georgia, from the 2020 presidential election. (Matt Hamilton/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP)
CLAIM: A new lawsuit against voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems has uncovered thousands of “duplicate ballots” in Fulton County, Georgia, from the 2020 presidential election.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There is no new lawsuit revealing new information about the three-year old election results. A video being shared online to support the claim is actually from 2021 and is about a lawsuit challenging the 2020 vote count in the Georgia county. Additionally, the lawsuit isn’t against Dominion Voting Systems but local officials. And while the legal challenge remains pending in court, state and local election officials maintain there was no evidence of widespread fraud found in the many reviews conducted after the election.
THE FACTS: As former President Donald Trump surrendered to charges of trying to steal the 2020 election in Georgia this week, social media users are claiming a lawsuit reveals new evidence of voter fraud in the state.
“BREAKING: Thousands of ‘duplicate ballots’ have been found in Fulton County, Ga from the 2020 presidential election through a lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems,” many of the posts on Twitter and other social media platforms read.
Some of the posts reference an item from the website Leading Report with the headline, “Election Fraud Discovered in Fulton County Georgia via Lawsuit.”
Still others include the video that’s the focus of Leading Report’s item: a short clip of Garland Favorito, co-founder of VoterGA, a Georgia group that challenged the state’s 2020 results, discussing the issue with a reporter from the conservative network Real America’s Voice.
But the widely shared video isn’t new; it’s more than two years old. Favorito also isn’t discussing a lawsuit against Dominion Voting, but his still-pending suit against elections officials in Fulton County. Favorito confirmed the video comes from a July 13, 2021 event in which he discussed the group’s legal challenge.
Michael Hassinger, a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, which oversees elections statewide, suggested the video was being “repurposed” in order to “capitalize on the excitement around Trump’s indictment.”
Originally filed in December 2020, the lawsuit by Favorito and eight other Georgia residents alleged voter fraud and improper ballot counting in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta and is the state’s most populous county.
The suit sought an outside review of the nearly 150,000 absentee ballots cast in the county, arguing that people who participated in a hand recount of the election claimed to have seen absentee, or mail-in, ballots that suspiciously weren’t creased and didn’t look like they were marked by hand.
Henry County Superior Court Chief Judge Brian Amero dismissed the suit in 2021, ruling the plaintiffs lacked standing to claim that their state constitutional rights had been violated.
Earlier this year, however, the state Court of Appeals overturned Amero’s decision, determining that the voters did indeed have standing in the case. The judgment sent the case back to the lower court, where it’s still pending.
Favorito, meanwhile, says “VoterGA still has not yet seen the ballots” it has long sought.
Spokespersons for Leading Report didn’t respond to messages seeking comment this week, but Fulton County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt argued that claims of election fraud in the county haven’t been borne out, despite multiple reviews.
Georgia and in particular Fulton County were a focus of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election after the Republican narrowly lost the traditionally red state.
Following the initial ballot count in 2020, Georgia officials conducted a full hand recount of the presidential race votes. A second machine recount was then done at the request of Trump’s campaign.
“After numerous reviews, no voter fraud has been identified in Fulton County because it has not occurred,” Corbitt wrote in an email. “It is unfortunate that individuals continue to make false statements about the 2020 elections. At this time we are using our resources to prepare for upcoming elections rather than continue to debunk misleading claims about the past.”
Raffensperger similarly declined to address the particulars of the voter fraud claims at the focus of the litigation.
“The voters of Georgia have already decided this issue in 2022, and they completely rejected all election deniers,” he said in an emailed statement. “They have moved on and so have we.”
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
