Georgia county recertifies election results, rejecting fraud claims tied to viral video

One Georgia county recertified its election results on Friday as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office debunked a recently surfaced video that appeared to show illegal ballot-counting without supervisors.

The Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections adjourned a meeting Friday in which members voted to recertify the results of the 2020 presidential race in favor of President-elect Joe Biden in a 3-2 voice vote.

Much of the meeting focused on a video that went viral Thursday, which political commentators claimed showed Fulton County election officials illegally stuffing ballots -- a form of election fraud in which more ballots are counted than were cast by eligible voters in a specific location.

A senior source in Raffensperger's office told Fox News that the video has been investigated and claims that it showed ballot fraud deemed unfounded, adding that Fulton County election officials had a designated observer at the location the entire time -- a practice that has been in place since June.

Raffensperger's office also debunked allegations that the ballots were stuffed in a pair of "suitcases" that one election official pulled out from beneath a table in the video, saying footage shows the ballots in the cases that they were supposed to be kept in. 

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Republican Georgia Rep. Jody Hice, however, shared the video on Twitter, calling the footage "explosive fraud."

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said during a Thursday interview on "The Ingraham Angle" that he has called for a signature audit into the video, but only the secretary of state has the power to order one.

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Georgia election chief Gabe Sterling shared a fact-check article from a news outlet called Lead Stories in a Thursday tweet, saying, "The 90-second video of election workers at State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by @GaSecofState investigators. Shows normal ballot processing. Here is the fact check on it."

Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron told the Board of Registration and Elections during Friday's hearing that he had not seen the video, but his staff told him the footage showed "normal" activity.

Barron took questions from Republican board members Kathleen Ruth and Mark Wingate, who voted against certifying election results.

In response to claims that staff and media left the counting site early, Barron said no one was told to leave early and that certain staff left after their duties concluded.

Democratic board member Aaron Johnson said the board needs to "sit down, look at what actually happened" and do what they can to "find out what happened."

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The deadline for all counties to complete their recounts was midnight Wednesday. Raffensperger told “Your World with Neil Cavuto” in November that he expected to see "very similar" results.

“When we did the first audit, we found mistakes in three counties and that added over 1,000 votes for President Trump," Raffensperger said. "That has all been accounted for, and so I think this one will be very close to what we just have now. I don’t see much difference whatsoever.”

President Trump has criticized Raffensperger’s oversight of the election, while Georgia Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both up for reelection in the January runoffs, have called for his resignation.