The Justice Department sued Fulton County, Georgia, on Friday, searching for records associated to the 2020 election as efforts proceed to show President Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him.
In the lawsuit, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division alleges that the Atlanta-area county didn’t adjust to a federal subpoena for its “used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election.”
County officers beforehand instructed the Justice Department these records have been below seal and couldn’t be handed over and not using a court docket order.
NCS has reached out to a spokesperson for Fulton County.
In addition, the Justice Department additionally sued 4 extra states in its quest to accumulate voter registration lists nationwide. The lawsuits introduced Friday are in opposition to Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Nevada. DOJ has now sued 18 states for voter lists, it says.
Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the division’s Civil Rights division, stated in an announcement Friday that states have a “duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution.”
“At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws,” she stated. “If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”
NCS’s Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.