By Maybe Trump was on to something in Georgia after all. In a stunning admission, Fulton County election officials have acknowledged that required signatures were missing from tabulator tapes tied to hundreds of thousands of early votes cast in Georgia’s closely contested 2020 presidential election, conceding a procedural violation even as those votes were included in the state’s certified results, according to a report by The Federalist.
The admission came during a December 9 hearing before the Georgia State Election Board, which was convened to review a complaint filed in March 2022 by election transparency activist David Cross. The complaint alleged that Fulton County violated state election rules by certifying early voting results without properly signed tabulation tapes—documents required to verify scanner totals.
Representing the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, Ann Brumbaugh told board members that while she personally had “not seen the tapes,” the county does “not dispute that the tapes were not signed.” She acknowledged, “It was a violation of the rule. We, since 2020, again, we have new leadership and a new building and a new board and a new standard operating procedures. And since then the training has been enhanced. … But … we don’t dispute the allegation from the 2020 election.”
A prior investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office found that in 36 of 37 advanced voting locations in Fulton County, end-of-day tabulation tapes were missing the required poll worker signatures. The probe also determined that so-called “zero tapes”—printouts verifying that voting machines began the day with no votes recorded—were not properly verified at 32 locations.
Under Georgia regulations, scanners must produce three end-of-day tapes, each signed by poll workers or accompanied by an explanation if a signature is refused. Zero tapes must similarly be printed and signed at the start of voting to ensure no residual or test ballots remain in the system. Election officials have previously cited an incident in Montana, where uncleared test data led to excess votes being reported, as an illustration of why such safeguards exist.
Addressing the board, Cross argued that “These signed tapes are the sole legal certification that the reported totals are authentic” and asserted that “Fulton County produced zero signed tabulator tapes in early voting.” He said public records requests costing more than $15,000 yielded 134 tapes associated with approximately 315,000 votes, all bearing unsigned signature sections.
Cross also raised concerns about other anomalies, including polling locations showing activity at unusual hours, such as after midnight, and repeated scanner serial numbers that suggested memory cards were transferred between machines. He characterized the issues as “catastrophic breaks in chain of custody and certification,” adding, “Because no tape was ever legally certified, Fulton County had no lawful authority to certify its advanced voting results to the secretary of state. Yet it did.”
He further noted that then–Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger incorporated the county’s figures into the statewide total, emphasizing, “This is not partisan. This is statutory. This is the law. When the law demands three signatures on tabulator tapes and the county fails to follow the rules, those 315,000 votes are, by definition, uncertified.”
Kevin Moncla, an election transparency advocate involved in related inquiries, suggested the number of affected votes could exceed 315,000. The Department of Justice has sued the county in an effort to gather election data from the 2020 presidential contest.
Cross has asked the State Election Board to sanction Fulton County, require a public acknowledgment of the violations, and formally note the irregularities in the county’s 2020 advanced voting results. He has said his goal is accountability and adherence to election law, not revisiting the outcome of the election.
The acknowledgment has renewed scrutiny of election procedures in Georgia, underscoring continuing disputes over compliance, record-keeping, and certification standards nearly five years after the 2020 vote.
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