The Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections (“FCDRE”) is an independently established and operated entity, by Georgia Elections Code (“Elections Code”) statute, responsible for conducting elections. It provides election documents, without independent audit, to the county Board of Elections for certification of elections.
In mid-May the Secretary of State sought and received a Court Order from the Fulton County Superior Court for the FCDRE to turn over all documents for the December 2017 Mayoral runoff election (“Mayoral Election”). In early June, I filed a 100-page election complaint that covers many of the topics discussed herein. I intend to file an amended complaint, with additional findings of irregularities and indications of voter fraud.
In context, well over 1,000 volunteer hours have gone into the construction of databases and understanding the Mayoral election. This was motivated by a desire to understand how candidate Mary. Norwood– ahead by nearly 2,100 votes after early voting, of 84,000 votes cast in Atlanta-Fulton County– lost the election. Such a margin going into day-of-voting with endorsements by former Mayor Shirley Franklin and almost all previous mayoral opponents made this outcome very difficult to understand or believe. Further, Mrs. Norwood received many complaints of election irregularities and potential fraud.
As a forensic accountant, I’m used to developing databases, models, providing analysis and evaluating internal controls within a subject matter for which I had no previous experience. This is familiar ground.
In summary, the FCDRE lacks basic accounting skills, accountability, effective internal controls and transparency. Further, there are indications that voter fraud is highly likely to have occurred. Thousands of “irregularities” have been identified that in many cases violate Elections Code.
Lack of Basic Accounting Skills
The basic construct of the Elections Code requires the FCDRE to balance votes cast with voters identified. There are required “ledgers” and “sub-ledgers” that must balance.
In this regard, a summary of findings to date includes:
* 1,550 more ballots were cast than persons identified as voting in the final credit for voting report (1.8% of votes cast).
* Greater than 1,400 persons identified as voting changed in the final credit for voting report versus the initial Certified report of persons identified as voting. This included 960 persons removed as voting and over 400 persons added.
* Persons identified as voting in Precinct 02J with 615 votes cast for Mayor remains missing.
* 22% of Voting Precinct “Audit Documents” are missing, required “sub-ledgers” are either missing or were omitted from FCDRE responses.
* 2,223 Registered Voters in the Certified Electors list do not have a voting precinct identified.
* A City of Hapeville Precinct with 130 votes were identified as voting in the City of Atlanta.
Lack of Accountability
Examples of findings to date includes:
* Certified Election Results were not provided to the Secretary of State and were not signed by the Election Superintendent. Rather, the Chair of the Board signed in lieu of the Superintendent. As an analogy, in public accounting this is like the President and CFO not signing a quarterly or annual financial report – this would be unacceptable to the SEC and the investor community.
* All Mayoral Election Certified documents fail the most basic tests for Certification, but the convoluted FCDRE processes and work product for accounting for votes cast and voters identified as voting makes the “unwinding” of this process difficult and time consuming.
* 390 voters were disenfranchised in voting by mail by the FCDRE, most of which were elderly and disabled. Fulton’s absentee by mail return rate fell to less than 50%, while DeKalb’s held steady in the 70% though DeKalb had to deal with the very same issues as Fulton. The Department has provided multiple and conflicting responses to this issue and no one has been fired, to my knowledge.
Internal Controls Failures and Indications of Voter Fraud
The Internal Controls of the Department are very weak and provide opportunity for a great deal of impropriety and fraud. Some examples are as follows:
* Seven (7) voters have been identified thus far that have two different registration numbers, both registration numbers voted in the Mayoral Election, this is an indication that fraud is highly likely to have occurred. A total of 638 voters have been identified thus far with multiple voter registration numbers (up to 4) just in the City of Atlanta-Fulton.
* As recently reported on CBS46, there are indications of desperation and potential fraud in the Mayoral Election that involved the use of City taxpayer resources on behalf of a Candidate and with the participation of a Candidate’s campaign regarding absentee ballots.
* 170 voters in the Mayoral Election were identified with residential addresses as a PO Box or “virtual” mail box, a clear violation of the Elections Code. I’ve identified over 1,000 registered voters that have PO Box or virtual mail boxes as residential addresses – just in the City of Atlanta-Fulton.
* Thousands of voters from multi-unit residential complexes do not have a unit number.
* In addition to the Hapeville Precinct, approximately 60 voters from outside the City voted in City precincts for Mayor have been identified.
* A total of 329 ineligible voters were identified, based on the final credit for voting list, that did not have valid registrations for voting in the City of Atlanta according to the Secretary of State’s Database (Fulton’s database has many differences but gives a consistent result in this regard).
* Voter Identification requirements clearly failed.
* Nearly 1,500 inactive voters (or no voting history but registered two Federal cycles previous) cast votes in the Mayoral Election based on the original Certified list of persons identified as voting.
Lack of Transparency
The FCDRE needs significant improvement with transparency and responsiveness to the Public. A few examples are as follows:
* The FCDRE does not video record or provide audio to the Public of the Board meetings.
* Board Meeting Minutes are inaccurate, based on the April 2018 meeting that I recorded, and contain very little worthwhile information.
* Clearly evasive and non-sensical responses provided by the Department to the Board in response to the April 2018 Wiedeman Board Presentation (4-1 Board vote compelling Department to respond).
* An entire neighborhood (Loch Lomond) that included 242 ballots cast, highly favoring one candidate over the other, that was deemed to be an illegal annexation by the Georgia Supreme Court. The County Attorney’s opinion on the matter has been withheld from the public as “Work Product”.
* The Board Chair recently emailed me that the Board and the Department would no longer answer well researched questions or address issues.
The FCDRE refunded greater than $260,000 to the City of Atlanta for conducting the Mayoral Election. A lack of resources does not provide an explanation for the fatally flawed performance of the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections.
I applaud the professional elections staff of the Secretary of State’s office. They have a time consuming and difficult task ahead. Regardless, the FCDRE urgently needs restructuring and voters need to be assured that their vote counts.
Justin Wiedeman is a forensic accountant in Atlanta.
