Less than a week afterfederal investigators raidedan Atlanta area elections hub, Fulton County officials say they plan to challenge the raid in court.
On Jan. 28, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigationsexecuted a search warrantat the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center in Union City, southwest of Atlanta.
Officials say the FBI seized hundreds of boxes of physical ballots, voter rolls, photos of ballots and other materials and records related to the 2020 election.
The raids were met with support from those who believe PresidentTrump won Georgiain 2020, despite a lack of evidence so far, and widespread criticism from those worried about the integrity of the midterm elections and those hoping to move forward.
Fulton County plans to fight back
Fulton County intends to file a motion challenging the legality of the search, according to a statement shared by Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr.
"I've asked the county attorney to take any and all steps available to fight this criminal search warrant," Arrington said. "The search warrant, I believe, is not proper, but I think that there are ways that we can limit it. We want to ask for forensic accounting, we want the documents to stay in the State of Georgia under seal, and we want to do whatever we can to protect voter information."
Arrington, a practicing attorney, says FBI agents were authorized to copy records under a court order, but they instead took the physical, original ballots. This includes in-person, absentee and provisional ballots, as well as voter rolls.
"They got copies of our voter rolls and all the original ballots," Arrington said. "Now we cannot verify that we've received everything back because there was no chain-of-custody inventory taken at the time the records were seized."
Officials said they will file a motion in the Northern District of Georgia federal court today.
Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA Today's Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Georgia officials plan to file motion against FBI raid of election hub
