Politics

County says election worker in hiding after false claims of throwing out ballot

By Nicole Carr, WSB-TV
By Nicole Carr, WSB-TV

ATLANTA — Just after 6 p.m. Friday, Fulton County election officials announced they were heading into the final stages of counting provisional ballots.

They expect counting to be complete before midnight.

The state’s largest county also has the largest number of provisional ballots to count at 3,612, according to Elections Supervisor Rick Barron. Barron also said more than 900 military and overseas ballots are also being counted.

While describing the process in front of a bipartisan group of observers, including Republican National Committee legal observers, Barron revealed an election worker from State Farm Arena was threatened over false claims of throwing out a ballot.

“He is in hiding,” Barron said.

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Barron said the worker was falsely accused of crumbling and discarding a ballot after the caption to a viral Twitter video went out this week.

Elections investigators and Barron reviewed the video that showed the worker at an envelope cutting machine.

The machine is used to cut the envelopes so you can separate the outer envelope from the inner envelope.

“However one thing that you need to know is that those ballots are 8 ½ by 19 inches long,” said Barron. “At no time did you see him extract anything from the envelope and that crumbled piece of paper, they were instructions and it was a smaller piece of paper.”

Barron said the county is reviewing whether it needs to help provide protection for the worker now.

“He is having to leave his house and go stay with friends,” Barron said. “He’s afraid to drive his car because the information about his car, about his license plate are out there.”

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