Fulton County officials have filed a motion in federal court seeking the return of 2020 election ballots and related materials that were seized by the FBI last month.
The motion, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, challenges the FBI’s removal of thousands of original ballots, voter rolls and other election records from the county’s Election Hub and Operation Center near Atlanta. The court filing also seeks to unseal the affidavit that was filed by the Trump administration to get approval for the unannounced search.
FBI agents executed a search warrant on Jan. 28, seizing about 700 boxes of documents tied to the November 2020 general election. Fulton County officials argue that the federal government exceeded its authority and violated legal protections for election materials.
Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts said during a press conference on Wednesday that the legal battle is in its early stage and that he is unable to go into further details. The county is not publicly releasing the motion because it is still under seal. He emphasized that Fulton County is “focused right now on delivering free and fair elections in 2026 in compliance with the law,” adding, “we must do this without interference or threats of a federal takeover.”
While federal officials have characterized the action as a court-authorized law enforcement operation, county leaders and Democratic lawmakers have blasted it as unprecedented and potentially harmful to trust in elections. Concerns include the absence of a formal chain-of-custody inventory when original ballots were taken by the FBI and uncertainty about where and how the materials are being stored.
“We don’t know where they are. We don’t know, really, who has them. We don’t know what they’re doing with them? Are they being tampered with?” Pitts said.
Fulton County was central to former President Donald Trump’s repeated claims, without evidence, that the 2020 election in Georgia was rigged, and those claims have fueled ongoing controversies and legal battles.
“The President himself and his allies, they refused to accept the fact that they lost, and even if he had won Georgia, he would still have lost the presidency,” Pitts said.
Pitts said he believes the investigation in Fulton County is a tactic by the Trump administration to influence future elections.
“I think, probably this is the first step in whatever they’re going to do in order to depress voter participation, voter registration — making whatever changes they think are necessary to help their case in 2026 but more importantly in 2028,” Pitts said.
On Monday Trump called on the GOP to “nationalize the voting” ahead of the midterm elections.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said on a podcast with Dan Bongino, the former deputy director of the FBI.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at CNN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.