The Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted to accept a $6.3 million grant from the Mark-Zuckerberg funded Center for Technology and Civic Life “Safe Elections” project at a September 2, 2020 board meeting. It proceeded without asking a single question about the name of the group providing the funding, the origin of the funding, or the details of what the funding would be used for.
As Breitbart News reported, a significant chain of custody security concerns surround absentee ballots deposited in the 300 drop boxes across the state approved by the Georgia State Election Board.
The office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said it had no idea how many of the 1.3 million absentee ballots (out of five million total votes cast) counted in the 2020 general presidential election were delivered by drop boxes vs. delivered by the mail.
According to the most recent vote tallies Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in Georgia by less than 12,000 votes.
In Fulton County, Biden received 381,144 votes compared to Donald Trump’s 137,240. Of the 523,000 total votes cast, Fulton County says 59,143 were Election Day votes, 146.994 were Absentee by Mail , 314,985 were Advanced Voting Votes, and 3.537 were Provisional Votes.
Here is the transcript of the commission’s vote to accept the $6.3 million grant from CTCL at their September 2, 2020 board meeting.
CLERK GRIER: “Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board, we have an item that needs to be added to today’s Regular Meeting Agenda. Bottom of the Add-on memo on page 3, 20-0627, Registration and Elections. Request approval of a grant award for elections processing and voting equipment.”
CHAIRMAN PITTS: “All right. That will require a supermajority of five yeas. I’m assuming that this one is time sensitive, so I’ll entertain a motion to –“
COMMISSIONER CARN: “– motion.”
CHAIRMAN PITTS: “All right. I’ll second. Let’s vote, please. Commissioner Hausmann. Commissioner Ellis.”
COMMISSIONER ELLIS: “Yes.”
CHAIRMAN PITTS: “Commissioner Morris.”
COMMISSIONER MORRIS: “Yes.”
CHAIRMAN PITTS: “Commissioner Hall.”
COMMISSIONER HALL: “Yes.”
CHAIRMAN PITTS: “Vice Chair Arrington. Commissioner Carn.”
COMMISSIONER CARN: “I vote, yes.”
CHAIRMAN PITTS: “And I vote, yes. Is that five?”
CLERK GRIER: “That’s five. And the motion passes.”
CHAIRMAN PITTS: “Thank you. Continue, Madam Clerk.
Later in that meeting, Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron told the Fulton County Board of Commissioners how he was able to secure the grant for the county, but failed to mention the name of the funding group–CTCL–or the fact they had only one day earlier, on September 1, received a $250 million donation from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, to fund the Fulton County grant.
“I went this summer and sought some grant funding, which the BOC approved today for over $6.3 million, and we’ve also received $5 million in COVID funding. And then with the $3.5 million soundings request today, that totals $14.5 million more in additional investments for we’re going to be — we were able to secure a lot of new polling places for, if we clean them afterwards, we got tech-support at all voting locations, postage and absentee ballots that we have to mail out,” Barron told the Fulton County Board of Commissioners at their September 2, 2020 board meeting.
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