The FBI searched the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center on Wednesday, more than five years after Georgia's 2020 election probe began. The raid comes amid the Department of Justice's lawsuit against Fulton County over 2020 election records, and years after the governor referred the audited November 2020 election results to the Georgia State Election Board.

"The FBI is conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity. No other information is available at this time," the FBI told Just the News. A separate, high-level official confirmed to Just the News that the FBI search was in connection to a criminal probe linked to the 2020 election.

The FBI told Fox News that FBI Atlanta was executing a "court-authorized law enforcement action at 5600 [Campbellton] Fairburn Rd."

"Our investigation into this matter is ongoing, so there are no details that we can provide at the moment," the FBI added.

Fulton County told WSBTV that the FBI was seizing records from the 2020 election. For its part, the county filed a motion to dismiss the claims earlier this month. Fulton County's Clerk of Courts, Ché Alexander, was named the defendant in the DOJ lawsuit. The motion argued that any such access to the 2020 materials should be sought from a state, not federal, court. 

On Jan. 20, the DOJ filed a response, arguing that Title III of the 1960 Civil Rights Act "provides that upon a demand from the Attorney General to any person having custody, possession, or control of any record or paper relating to any application, registration, payment or poll tax, or other act requisite to voting, such record or paper shall be produced" and that, "Defendants seek to rewrite the Civil Rights Act and place restrictions and limitations on the power granted to the Attorney General that have no basis in law."

“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center. The warrant sought a number of records related to 2020 elections," a county spokesperson said. “This operation is still actively underway. We cannot provide further information at this time.”

Ballot handling and chain-of-custody issues

The Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center opened in 2023 at the direction of state officials. Fulton County has been under scrutiny since 2020, when it became the center of President Donald Trump's election fraud claims in the state.

The Georgia Republican Party said they are "calling for full transparency and accountability" into the FBI's raid of the election hub, 11Alive reported.

"For years, Georgians have raised serious questions about election procedures in Fulton County, particularly regarding ballot handling and chain-of-custody processes. Today’s action by federal authorities underscores the importance of finally addressing those concerns openly and thoroughly," the state party said in a statement.

Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon said, “Today marks a major step toward truth and accountability. The FBI’s execution of a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub is long overdue—Georgians have waited years for real answers about what happened in 2020. Getting every detail out, especially around ballot handling and processes in Fulton, is absolutely critical.

"Without full transparency, trust in our elections stays broken. We demand the facts come to light, no cover-ups, so every legal vote is honored and future elections are secure. The Georgia GOP stands with the pursuit of justice here—it’s time to expose the truth once and for all.”

Irregularities confirmed

Salleigh Grubbs, a new member of the Georgia State Election Board, said she felt "disbelief" that the FBI was raiding the Fulton election hub, and that it had "been a long time coming."

"I can only imagine it would have something to do with the subpoenas that have been issued previously, so, that's just a guess, I don't know anything for sure," she said, later adding, "I don't know what they've requested, don't know what they've asked for, I'm just hoping we'll get more answers."

Post-2020 election investigations and reports have confirmed irregularities in the election process in Georgia's most populous county. In 2021, Just the News found that the tally sheets the county used for audits and recounts did not match totals from ballot images, appearing to duplicate counts.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), in 2021, issued an official complaint about "sloppy" processes in the county and later referred the 2020 election results to the State Election Board after multiple reviews found significant problems with absentee ballot counting that included duplicate tallies, math errors, and transposed data.

Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections admits violation of rules

The FBI search on Wednesday follows Fulton County informing the State Election Board last month that tabulator tapes were not properly signed after the 2020 election, in violation of state regulations, Atlanta News First reported. Also, the county explained that it had misplaced other tabulator tapes and documents from that election.

The tabulator tapes are essentially receipts printed from ballot tabulation machines used to verify that the number of voters matches the number of votes. According to Georgia regulations, a poll manager and two witnesses must be present for the printing, checking, and signing of each tape from the machines.

Ann Brumbaugh, an attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections, told the SEB on Dec. 9, “We do not dispute that the tapes were not signed. It was a violation of the rule. They should have done it.”

She said that since the 2020 election, the county says it has made significant changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again. “Procedures have been updated. People are taking this very seriously now,” Brumbaugh said. “Since then, the training has been enhanced, the poll watchers are trained specifically. They’ve got to sign the tapes in the morning, and they’ve got to sign the tapes when they’re run at the end of the day.”

About 130 of the unsigned tapes from voting machines accounted for 315,000 early voters in 2020, which is almost every ballot cast before Election Day.

The State Election Board unanimously voted to refer the case to the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, where Fulton County could be fined as much as $5,000 for each missing or unsigned tabulator tape.

Robert Sinners, communications director for the Georgia Secretary of State's Office, told The Center Square at the time, "The basis for these claims is that Fulton County admitted to sloppy election administration and not following a State Election Board rule. There is no mechanism in law to overturn the election based on not following this rule – as it wasn’t even part of the election code – it was a procedural rule."

Meanwhile, Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer told the news outlet, "I’m hopeful the Justice Department will impound the 2020 ballots and conduct a count that’s open to the public. Maybe we need to put an asterisk next to the election results in the history books and determine who’s responsible for these errors and hold them accountable."

The DOJ claimed in court papers that it sent a letter to the Fulton County clerk in November seeking ballot stubs and signature envelopes from the election, which allegedly went unanswered.

Last week, Trump said that "people will soon be prosecuted" over the 2020 election, which he argues was rigged against him in Georgia and other states.