Georgia Judge Dismisses Fulton County 2020 Ballot Review Case

In this screenshot from video, Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero is seen during a hearing on June 21, 2021. Henry County via NTD

A judge in Georgia on Oct. 13 threw out a lawsuit from an election integrity group after state investigators said there was no evidence backing allegations of falsified ballots being included in the 2020 election count in Fulton County.

Henry County Superior Court Chief Judge Brian Amero said petitioners, including election watchdog Garland Favorito, didn’t have proper standing to pursue their case.

Favorito and others had obtained scanned images of ballots and had an expert testify that there were discrepancies between the ballot count and that put forth by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s risk-limiting audit. They asked to review the actual ballots.

Amero agreed to unseal the ballots but postponed the review after Fulton County filed a motion to dismiss. The judge agreed, but let the case proceed against a group of individuals. That ultimately led to the decision on Oct. 13, where the judge said the petitioners lacked standing to proceed against those persons.

“Even if the Court construes the allegations in petitioners’ pleadings, including their attached affidavits and exhibits, in the light most favorable to them, the Court is constrained to conclude that petitioners lack standing to pursue their state equal protection and state due process claims,” Amero wrote (pdf).

Regardless of the veracity of the allegations offered, petitioners have “failed to allege a particularized injury,” he said.

The decision came a day after investigators with the office of Raffensperger, a Republican, said they hadn’t found evidence substantiating election fraud claims after following up on affidavits filed in the case.

In a statement to news outlets, Favorito said he planned to appeal the order.

“All citizens of Georgia have a right to know whether or not counterfeit ballots were injected into the Fulton Co. election results, how many were injected, where they came from, and how we can prevent it from happening again in future elections,” he said.

Raffensperger told The Epoch Times in an email: “The day after my investigators debunked several election conspiracy theories, the courts dismissed the last November 2020 election lawsuit. I have said time and time again that though no election is perfect, and Fulton County is case in point, the allegations of widespread fraud were nothing more than conspiracy theories and innuendo. We need to start looking forward not back. Case dismissed.”