President Donald Trump’s legal team on Thursday presented surveillance footage to a Georgia State Legislature hearing that appears to show election ballot-counting workers kicking out poll observers late at night on Election Day before pulling out what appear to be suitcases allegedly filled with ballots.
A woman who identified herself as Jackie Pick, a lawyer who is assisting with their legal case, said the team received video footage from State Farm Arena’s vote-tabulation center in Fulton County, Georgia. The team said that GOP poll watchers were not allowed to watch the counting process in the poll center.
But, according to Pick, an unusual occurrence took place later in the evening at around 10 p.m. ET. A woman—described as a blonde woman with braids—told workers to stop counting and told everyone to go home.
“Everyone clears out, including the Republican observers and the press, but four people stay behind and continue counting and tabulating well into the night,” Pick said. They counted unobserved until about 1 a.m.
Pick said that video footage shows Fulton County election workers waiting at their scanning areas until GOP poll watchers and reporters left the room before they started “scanning ballots,” ostensibly without any observation. Pick noted that it contravenes state and county law. //
At 11 p.m., once everyone is gone, the workers are seen “pulling ballots out from underneath a table.” She asked if it’s normal to “store suitcases of ballots under a table cloth?” Pick said after reviewing footage that it’s not a normal procedure.
It’s not clear if election workers knew they were being recorded on camera.
The lawyer further alleged that the same woman with the blonde hair and braids, presumably the manager, had placed the table there earlier. It’s not clear where those ballots came from, and it’s not clear when the purported suitcases of thousands of ballots were placed under the table. Whether they’re suitcases or a special carrier for ballots is also not clear.
Witnesses have sworn in affidavits that the counting continued until the early morning hours, Trump’s team said.
“Why are they counting them when the place is cleared out with no witnesses?” Pick said.
She argued that based on the number of ballots there, it is “beyond the margin of victory” in the presidential race. It’s because three scanners—which can carry out several thousand ballot processes per hour—were working several hours that night. This process, she said, “goes on, and on, and on” until the early morning hours.
