Still no chain of custody records provided for scads of Georgia absentee ballots put in drop boxes

More than five months have elapsed since the 2020 presidential election, but officials in the Peach State have yet to produce chain of custody records for hundreds of thousands of absentee vote-by-mail ballots that were placed in drop boxes throughout the state.

The Georgia Star News reported that the Georgia Secretary of State's office has said that there were 1.3 million absentee vote-by-mail ballots cast in the contest. The outlet said that polling performed by John McLaughlin & Associates suggests that 600,000 of those ballots were placed in the drop boxes throughout the state. 

"According to Georgia Election Code Emergency Rule 183-1-14-0.8-.14, promulgated by the Georgia State Election Board in July 2020, but not codified by the state legislature at the time as the Georgia Constitution requires, each of Georgia's 159 counties is responsible for documenting the transfer of every batch of absentee ballots picked up at drop boxes and delivered to the county election offices with ballot transfer forms. The forms are required to be signed and dated, with time of pick up by the collection team upon pick up, and then signed, dated, with time of delivery by the registrar or designee upon receipt and accepted," The Star News reported.

"We don't know how many absentee ballots arrived by mail versus drop box. The counties can tell you," a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Breitbart in early December.

Then, during the period of December 7-11, The Star News issued Open Records requests to Georgia's 159 counties in an effort to procure copies of the ballot transfer documentation, but since doing so the outlet has only received chain of custody documentation from 59 counties. Based on the estimated 600,000 votes placed in drop boxes statewide, the outlet reports that it has yet to receive documentation for 355,918, or 59.3% of those 600,000 ballots.

The outlet noted that it's possible the numbers supplied by Fulton County may not be complete. It also said that 28 counties did not respond to the records requests and 71 counties either did not have drop boxes or stated that they would supply records if a processing fee is paid.