Justice Department seeks the names of 2020 election workers in Georgia's
Fulton County
[May 06, 2026]
By KATE BRUMBACK
ATLANTA (AP) — The Department of Justice is seeking the names of every
person who worked in the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County, a
Democratic stronghold that Donald Trump has long accused of widespread
voter fraud he falsely says cost him victory against Joe Biden in the
state that year.
Lawyers for the county filed a motion on Monday night to quash a grand
jury subpoena that asks for the names and personal contact information
of county employees and volunteer poll workers. This latest action comes
after the FBI in January went to a Fulton County elections warehouse and
seized ballots and other documents from the 2020 election, which
Georgia’s certified totals showed Trump lost in the state to Biden by
11,779 votes out of nearly 5 million cast. Trump, a Republican, still
insists the election was stolen from him even though judges and his own
attorney general concluded otherwise.
Monday's court filing says the subpoena is meant to “target, harass and
punish the President's perceived political opponents.” The request is
“grossly overbroad and untethered to any reasonable need,” the county's
lawyers argue. It “cannot yield any evidence that could result in a
criminal prosecution," they wrote, arguing that the statute of
limitations on any federal crime related to the 2020 election has
already expired.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to an email seeking
comment Tuesday.
County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts, in an emailed
statement, called the subpoena “yet another act of outrageous federal
overreach designed to intimidate and chill participation in elections.”
“Let me be crystal clear. Fulton County will not be intimidated,” said
Pitts, a Democrat who’s running for reelection.
Since the 2020 election, Trump “has obsessively propagated the debunked
conspiracy theory that Fulton County ‘stole’ the 2020 election from
him,” the county’s lawyers wrote. “And he has made it clear that he
seeks retribution against those who refuse to indulge his baseless
claims.”
Trump has already targeted individual poll workers like Ruby Freeman,
who was attacked by him and his supporters after the election. Freeman,
who's Black, has said she was forced to flee her home after false claims
of election fraud against her led to racist threats and strangers
showing up at her home.
[to top of second column]
|
Stickers sit on a table inside a polling place, Nov. 5, 2024, in
Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
The grand jury subpoena, dated April 17, was served on the county's
director of elections on April 20, the county's court filing says.
It seeks the “name, position/function, residential and email
addresses, and personal telephone number(s)” for thousands of
election workers “ranging from county employees who assisted on
election day, to bus drivers who operated a mobile voting location,
to volunteers and temporary poll workers,” the filing says.
The subpoena “is a chilling escalation in the campaign to terrorize
Fulton County election workers," the county's lawyers wrote, adding
that threats arising from the current political environment have
caused election workers to “fear for their physical safety.” That
and other stresses “including the likelihood of being scapegoated by
public officials” are causing election workers to leave their jobs
“in unprecedented numbers,” they wrote.
The county's lawyers note that the subpoena directs the county to
provide the records not to the grand jury but to an out-of-state
Justice Department lawyer or to the FBI agent who wrote the
affidavit used for the seizure of the county's 2020 ballots in
January.
The January seizure of the ballots and other records from Fulton
County was one in a string of moves by Trump's administration to
obtain past election records from critical swing states. The FBI in
March used a subpoena to get records related to an audit of the 2020
presidential election in Maricopa County in Arizona. And the Justice
Department in April demanded that Michigan’s Wayne County turn over
its ballots from the 2024 election, which Trump won against Biden's
vice president, Kamala Harris.
The Justice Department is also fighting numerous states in court for
access to voter data that includes sensitive personal information.
Election officials, including some Republicans, have said handing
over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
