Officials: Fulton’s Monitoring Team Can’t Fix Election Failure

Fulton County, Georgia approved a monitoring team to oversee its elections after the state found the county violated election laws in 2020. But some state and county officials told The Federalist they’re skeptical about the county’s electoral integrity even with the monitoring team.

In May, after reviewing allegations made in a complaint filed by Kevin Moncla and Joseph Rossi, the State Election Board (SEB) found Fulton County had broken the law by scanning more than 3,000 ballots twice during a recount of the 2020 presidential election. (Fulton County was also previously “reprimanded” by the SEB for its election administration, having failed to count 1,326 votes during the 2022 primary, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)

As a result of this finding in May, the board ruled 2-1 to “issue a letter of reprimand to Fulton County, and enter a memorandum of understanding between Fulton County, the Office of the Secretary of State, and the State Election Board, outlining a mutually agreeable monitor for the 2024 election cycle by the next hearing,” as noted in the May 7 meeting minutes. However, “[s]hould an agreeable monitor not be reached by the next scheduled Board meeting, a motion will be presented to refer the case to the Attorney General’s office,” as noted in the minutes.

The SEB did not reach an agreement regarding the monitoring team by the July meeting, as indicated in internal emails obtained by The Federalist. Internal emails also show the SEB was prepared to refer the complaint to the attorney general for investigation if a monitoring team was not agreed upon before the July meeting. The board voted 3-2 in August to refer the case for investigation, though the state’s attorney general refused to take up the case.

Meanwhile, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners approved a monitoring team independently from the SEB.

Monitoring Team

The Fulton County Commission voted 5-2 to approve a contract (in the sum of $99,600) for an election monitoring team on Sept. 4, as Commissioner Bridget Thorne confirmed. Thorne and Bob Ellis voted against the proposal. 

The approved proposal states the “goal” of the monitoring team involves “provid[ing] systematic, comprehensive, and accurate gathering of information regarding Fulton County’s administration of the 2024 election.”

One “objective” of the program, as outlined in the proposal is to “provide process and compliance-oriented monitoring, including quality assurance processes, of all aspects of election administration in Fulton County, including: Security and Chain of Custody Procedures, Poll Worker Training, Ballot Proofing, [and] Logic and Accuracy Testing,” among other things. 

The proposal also indicates that the monitoring team “understands … it has no supervisory authority, and it will not instruct Fulton County personnel to do or not do a certain action.”

Members of the monitoring team include Ryan Germany and Carter Jones, according to the proposal.

Jones was an SEB-appointed monitor for Fulton County Elections in 2020 and Germany is the former general counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. Germany later wrote a performance review memo (that cited Jones) attributing the problems seen in Fulton County to honest mistakes, saying there were no “indications of fraud, dishonesty, or intentional malfeasance in the 2020 election results in Fulton County,” but clarifying it was evident “how a lack of careful planning and precision in ensuring that processes were strictly followed led to errors and to an overall environment that appeared unorganized.”

“The same people (Carter Jones and Ryan Germany) were involved in the monitoring of 2020 and the performance review of 2020,” Moncla told The Federalist. “Repeating the same process which failed before is not smart — that is, unless you want the same result.”

The Federalist reached out to Jones and Germany regarding the function and makeup of the monitoring team but did not receive a response.

Illusion Of Accountability

Commissioner Thorne told The Federalist she is concerned about the lack of auditing experience among the monitoring team members. 

“I think a complaint is that they don’t really have any auditing experience, and there [are] no real experts with equipment. You have an elections director, a former SEB member, you have an attorney, but you need people who understand [certain software] in a computer system,” Thorne told The Federalist. “The programming of the equipment — they need a computer expert or a dominion voting equipment expert to make sure machines are programmed correctly.”

“They need to look over real auditing procedures, comparing voters in each precinct and how many ballots — none of that has ever been closely looked at, that’s how Moncla found double-scanned ballots and false tally sheets in the hand recount,” Thorne continued. 

Thorne noted that while the team says it will look into logic and accuracy testing this go around, she said it’s unclear whether the team will also look at “batch management,” which Thorne describes as the “grouping of ballots (usually in batches of 100) to be scanned/tabulated.”

SEB board member Janelle King told The Federalist that she does “not support the current monitoring team, particularly its formation.”

“If the goal is transparency and accountability, appointing a team that a majority of the State Election Board disagrees with is counterproductive,” King said. “I would prefer to revert to the original arrangement, which included our input. Otherwise, I find it difficult to take these actions seriously.”

King said members of the monitoring team should be comprised of “individuals from the public who possess a solid understanding of our election process.”

“I believe it is morally unethical to have a former member from the Secretary of State’s office as a member of the team,” she said. “When a county election office fails, the entire state is affected, so it is essential to maintain as much separation as possible.”

Fellow SEB member Dr. Jan Johnston said Monday during a public SEB hearing that “[t]here has been no mutually agreed upon monitor team and the Fulton County decided, or BRE [Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections] decided on its own, to move on with the Ryan Germany team, which is disconcerting because I have received over 1,000 emails opposing the Ryan Germany monitor team” and its potential collaboration with the leftist Carter Center.

Fulton County Republican Chairwoman Stephanie Endres told The Federalist while a monitoring team “could be great,” there are two main “keys” to ensuring success.

“Number one, they have to have the right expertise, and number two, they can’t have any ties anywhere, which makes it very difficult,” Endres said.

“It would be helpful if someone on their team was an internal auditor or someone who is a financial auditor who could appreciate process flows and testing of processes to make sure that standard operating procedures and the processes are working effectively so that there can be a level of comfort in the accuracy of the reporting,” Endres said.

But Endres said Fulton County lacks a set of standard operating procedures, which she claimed would help guide the county on how to do things like “reconcile their ballots.”

“If they’re going to be monitoring to ensure that the processes work properly, they need to understand the data and the format of the data,” Endres said. “They need to have a flow chart of how the different pieces work together with a set of standard operating procedures. That way, what they’re monitoring they can make sure those [standard procedures] are being followed.”

An alternate proposal for the monitoring team — different from the one approved this month — submitted by SEB member Dr. Jan Johnston included specific language instructing the monitoring team to review “standard operation procedures for each step of the election process” before the election, as detailed in internal emails obtained by The Federalist. The proposal also specified what the board would review in regard to each step of the election process. The proposed team members also included voter data analysts like Mark Davis, who has served as an expert witness in five election-related cases.

The Federalist asked the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections, which also approved the monitoring team proposal, to confirm the makeup of the monitoring team and clarify its functional role, noting how the contract proposal states the monitoring team “understands that it has no supervisory authority, and it will not instruct Fulton County personnel to do or not do a certain action,” but did not receive a response.

The Federalist also inquired whether any members of the team have auditing experience, or whether the team would be following a standard operating procedure, but did not receive a response to these questions either.

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2