43,000 absentee ballots counted in key Georgia county violated chain of custody rule

Georgia election officials certified 43,907 absentee ballots from DeKalb County in the 2020 election despite the ballots being in violation of state chain of custody requirements, a report said.

A total of 61,731 absentee ballots were placed in drop boxes for the November election, meaning that 72 percent of them lacked chain of custody requirements “set forward in Georgia Emergency Rule 183-1-14-1.8-.14 promulgated by the Georgia State Election Board at its July 1, 2020, meeting,” Georgia Star News , which obtained 725 DeKalb County ballot drop box transfer forms via an open records request, reported on Aug. 30.

That rule states absentee ballots placed in drop boxes “shall be immediately transported to the county registrar” by the two person collection team, which is required to sign a ballot transfer form indicating the number of ballots picked up, the time the ballots were picked up, and the location of the drop box, and that, “The county registrar or a designee thereof shall sign the ballot transfer form upon receipt of the ballots from the collection team.”