Georgia Secretary of State admits botched ballot process involving MTG’s ex, blames county

The Georgia secretary of state’s office provided information that they say shows Floyd County was at fault handling the 2020 election ballot of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) ex-husband Perry Greene. He says that this was not a “one-off” mistake. 

Last week, the congresswoman posted on her account on X, (formerly Twitter) about how her then-husband, Perry Greene, went to cast a ballot at a polling station in the 2020 general election but was told that he had already voted absentee. She challenged that, saying her then-husband had not requested a mail-in absentee ballot for that election. She also claimed the same happened to other voters in that polling station. 

Greene wrote in her post that she and her then-husband told the story “and were both called liars, until we FOIA’d the documents.” She provided records to Just the News last Thursday and said in a statement, "We have never heard from the Secretary of State’s office, or from the Governor or from anyone about this."

Greene, whose husband filed for divorce from her last September, has vocally supported former President Donald Trump's claims that there was election fraud in 2020. 

Trump and 18 others were indicted last week on state charges in Fulton County, Ga., for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) said she has issued arrest warrants for all 19 defendants but gave them until Friday to voluntarily surrender. 

Perry Greene verified his ex-wife's account directly to Just the News on Friday, adding that he signed a “Cancel Ballot Affidavit” form, on which he wrote, “I did not request one!!” and was able to cast an in-person early vote ballot. Early vote ballots are called in-person absentee ballots in Georgia.  

He added that there were about three other people in line with him who experienced the same issue. 

On Tuesday, the secretary of state’s office provided a screenshot of Perry Greene’s voting history, including an audit history, which shows the user ID of the person who issued his ballot. 

Mike Hassinger, a public information officer with the Georgia secretary of state’s office said in a statement on Tuesday, “These screenshots of audit logs from the voter registration system show that a county worker took action to issue a ballot for the voter at 4:03PM on October 23, 2020. They subsequently canceled that ballot. Then, 5 minutes later at 4:08PM, they issued another ballot to the voter and successfully checked in the voter to allow him to vote advanced in-person. 

“This suggests that the first issuance of a ballot at 4:03PM was likely poll worker error.” 

After reviewing the new information from the secretary of state’s office, Perry Greene told Just the News on Tuesday, "This particular situation makes sense, but they could've answered our question a long time ago, because this happened to numerous other people."

He said that this issue should be addressed and "resolved so it doesn't happen again. They're trying to downplay it as if it's a one-off, but it's not.” 

The Floyd County elections supervisor didn’t respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. 

Last week, Perry Greene noted that there were discrepancies in Floyd County during the 2020 general election, leading to the firing of the elections supervisor. Greene also said that there were 3,000 ballots for Trump in a box on the floor, referencing the roughly 2,600 ballots that went mostly for Trump and were discovered during the state's audit.

Perry Greene also explained that he “heard from a lot of people” who experienced a similar issue with their ballot, but he “couldn’t chase them all down,” especially since it was expensive to hire an attorney just to obtain his own ballot information. 

Floyd County explained in July 2022 that the Georgia secretary of state’s database appeared to have "an error in the system" that showed Perry Greene had voted prior to casting his ballot, according to email correspondence between his lawyer and a Floyd County attorney regarding an open records request. 

“There's enough there to say there's fraud in the system,” Perry Greene said. “It needs to be investigated,” such as whether it “is a one-off or how to prevent changes [like this] in 2024.”  

The Secretary of State's Hassinger said in a statement on Thursday, "According to our records, this is obviously a county-level error, which the county addressed publicly in their previous statements. Floyd County made many mistakes during the 2020 election which is why our office called for their director to resign."