How an Election Conspiracy Theory Led Back to Georgia Cops
An election conspiracy that went viral on right-wing news sites and was promoted by former President Donald Trump has been debunked by security footage obtained exclusively by VICE News.
In May 2021 in Fulton County, Georgia, an alarm was triggered in an election warehouse that stored ballots and voting machines from the 2020 presidential election. A photo taken of an open door at the warehouse was used by conspiracy theorists and right-wing media to claim that the 2020 election was, indeed, insecure. But through a series of interviews and Freedom of Information Act requests, VICE News found that it wasn’t election workers who opened that door—it was off-duty police officers.
The warehouse had become a site of contention earlier that year, as lawyers and pro-Trump activitsts sued Fulton County multiple times to review the absentee ballots. As part of the fourth lawsuit brought against the county, a judge ordered that Fulton County Sheriff's department provide round-the-clock watch of the warehouse to ensure no one was tampering with ballots.
That protection was not enough for Bob Cheeley, one of the lawyers who filed suit against Fulton County. Cheeley decided to hire off-duty sheriff’s deputies from neighboring Douglas County to do their own surveillance of the warehouse. The deputies were hired through T&T Security, a private security company. They were tasked with sitting across the street from the warehouse and monitoring any potentially unusual activity.
Election workers at the warehouse, already on high alert after being subject to months of violent threats from Trump supporters who believed the election was stolen, were uneasy about the off-duty sheriffs watching them exit and enter the building.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbnyd/georgia-fulton-county-election-conspiracy
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