A federal court has agreed to make public the affidavit that supported the FBI search warrant used to take hundreds of boxes of 2020 election records from Fulton County last month.
What’s Happening: On Jan. 28, FBI agents removed about 665 boxes of election materials from the Fulton County elections building at 5600 Campbellton Fairburn Road in Union City. Last week, county officials filed a motion in federal district court in Atlanta. They asked for the seized materials to be returned and for the affidavit behind the search warrant to be unsealed.
What’s Important: The search warrant covered a broad set of items from the 2020 General Election. That included all physical ballots, from absentee and advanced voting ballots to provisional, in-person Election Day, and emergency ballots. Damaged or destroyed ballots were also listed.
Beyond ballots, the warrant sought voter rolls, tabulator tapes from voting machines, and all ballot images from the original count that began Nov. 3, 2020, the recount, and any other scanning tied to the general election.
What Officials Said: Fulton County Board of Commission Chair Robb Pitts put out a statement Sunday about the ruling. “The Court’s action affirms that this case is a matter of public interest, in Fulton County and beyond,” Pitts said. He also said: “Fulton County will continue to pursue every legal option to seek the return of election records and to defend our elections from possible takeover.”
What Happens Next: County officials said they plan to continue seeking the return of the seized records through the courts. Pitts said county staff would not stop preparing for the 2026 elections.
