DeKalb County Cannot Find Chain of Custody Records for Absentee Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes: ‘It Has Not Been Determined If Responsive Records to Your Request Exist’
DeKalb County responded to an Open Records Request from The Georgia Star News to produce the ballot transfer forms that formed the critical chain of custody link in the absentee ballots deposited in the near 300 drop boxes in the state and transported to county election offices in a letter received on Friday that said the county did not know if such records exist.
Earlier this week, the Secretary of States’ office told Breitbart News that it did not know how many of the 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election were delivered by mail vs. drop box, but the counties should know.
The Georgia Star News filed an open records request on Tuesday for all “ballot transfer forms” from the Nov. 3 General Election in DeKalb County. But there is no way to determine the chain of custody.
The open records request reply, received from Assistant County Attorney at DeKalb County Dexter Q. Bond, Jr., stated, “it has not yet been determined if responsive records to your request exist.”
The ballot transfer forms that remain unknown in DeKalb are a part of Georgia’s new Election Code implemented this past summer.
The DeKalb County response was unusual in several ways.
The Georgia Star News has contacted several counties in the state, and DeKalb is the only county so far to respond that it does not know if it has ballot transfer forms.
Cook County, for instance, provided copies of all the ballot transfer forms used in the 2020 general election within 24 hours.
Late Friday afternoon Cobb County provided copies of 400 ballot transfer forms used in the 2020 general election.
The Georgia Star News received responses from election officials in both Cobb County and Cook County.
In contrast, the DeKalb County response instead came from an Assistant County Attorney.
It strains credulity to suggest that the election director of DeKalb County cannot say whether or not the legally required ballot transfer forms exist in 30 seconds, not the 30 days the county says it needs to be able to answer that question.