Well, well, well.
It’s no secret that the left often likes to ridicule conservatives about complaints regarding “stolen elections.”
How do you explain this bombshell analysis from The Federalist?
“Earlier this month, Fulton County admitted that approximately 315,000 early votes from the 2020 election were illegally certified but were nonetheless still included in the final results of that election,” the outlet’s Brianna Lyman wrote.
During a hearing before the Georgia State Election Board on Dec. 9, an admission was made in connection with a challenge brought by David Cross, a local activist focused on election integrity. Cross had submitted the challenge in March 2022, claiming that Fulton County had not followed Georgia’s election rules during early voting ahead of the November 2020 election.
Specifically, he alleged that hundreds of thousands of ballots were counted despite election workers failing to sign the vote tabulation “tapes,” which are essential for certifying election results.
Fulton County has effectively admitted to these allegations now.
Georgia’s Secretary of State Office investigated the claim that tabulation tapes went unsigned and confirmed that Fulton County had violated election procedures.
The 2024 investigation summary found that 36 out of 37 advanced voting precincts in the county failed to sign the required tabulation tapes. Officials at 32 polling sites also did not verify their zero tapes.
Under Georgia election rules, The Federalist reported, each ballot scanner must print three closing tapes at the end of every voting day. Poll workers are required to sign these tapes or provide a documented reason if they refuse.
At the start of each voting day, poll workers must print and sign a “zero tape” to show that the machines began with zero votes. This step is a critical part of ensuring the integrity of the vote count — and it was clearly overlooked in this case.
“If there is no record of whether the tabulator was set at zero at the start of polling, there is no way of telling whether ballots from a previous election (or ballots from a test run) were left on the memory card and might later be counted,” the conservative news magazine reported.
The Federalist quoted Ann Brumbaugh, attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, as saying the county does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.”
She went on to admit that this “was a violation of the rule” and added that the county now has “new leadership … and new standard operation procedures.”
“But,” she conceded, “We don’t dispute the allegation from the 2020 election.”
The Federalist also reported that Cross said he found “additional irregularities, such as polling locations being open at ‘impossibly late hours, like 2:09 a.m.’” as well as “duplicated scanner serial numbers, where the memory devices were removed from one scanner and printed on an alternate scanner.”
Look, admittedly, this writer personally doesn’t care all that much for chit-chat about 2020. It’s over, it’s done with, and it didn’t matter come the 2024 general election, which President Donald Trump dominated by sweeping every swing state.
But there is something critical and vital to unpack here.
Namely, this is what conservatives were talking about when it comes to “stolen elections.”
Yes, there are obviously some conspiratorial-leaning minds that insist on hacked systems, Russian/Chinese influence, and/or late-night ballot dumps (though that last one does appear to lend some credence to ballot shenanigans).
But when it comes to Republican concerns about election integrity, it’s this sort of (admittedly more boring) logistical chicanery that they’re complaining about.
And make no mistake, this could’ve made a big difference in 2020.
Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes in total to former President Joe Biden, according to CNN. That total is roughly 4 percent of 300,000. Had those Fulton County ballots been properly certified, could that have swung that key 4 percent? It’s well within the realm of possibility.
But more so, this sort of nonsense is exactly why Trump ordered Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to look into these inconsistencies — a request that was one of the pillars for his impeachment trials.
Remember that Trump was indicted for “pressuring” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to investigate election integrity in his state, and that this was linked with his impeachment. Kinda looks like Trump was right, and was punished for asking appropriate questions. https://t.co/9mJJM9bPC7
— FischerKing (@FischerKing64) December 19, 2025
As one X user astutely pointed out, “Kinda looks like Trump was right, and was punished for asking appropriate questions.”
And if that’s not an iron-clad case for pushing for election integrity, what is?
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