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source_url: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/02/02/fulton-county-filing-lawsuit-over-fbi-raid-elections-hub/
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Fulton County officials demand return of election documents after FBI raid
Federal officials seized hundreds of boxes related to 2020 presidential election
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — A Fulton County commissioner said a lawsuit is being filed Monday over last week’s stunning FBI raid of the county’s elections hub.
Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr., said the lawsuit will challenge the legality of the warrant and the [seizure of election records](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/01/28/fbi-executes-search-warrant-fulton-county-main-election-office/). County attorneys are expected to file a lawsuit in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia.
“I have asked the county attorney to take any and all steps available to fight this criminal search warrant,” Arrington said. “The search warrant is not proper, but there are ways that we can limit it. We want to ask for forensic accounting; we want the documents to stay in the State of Georgia under seal; and we want to do whatever we can to protect voter information.”
FULL COVERAGE
[Fulton County officials claim political retribution behind FBI elections raid](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/01/29/fulton-county-officials-claim-political-retribution-behind-fbi-elections-hub-raid/)[FBI raids Fulton County office for records tied to 2020 election](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/01/28/fbi-executes-search-warrant-fulton-county-main-election-office/)[Georgia political leaders react to FBI raid on Fulton elections office](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/01/29/georgia-political-leaders-react-fbi-raid-fulton-elections-office/)
On Jan. 28, 2026, FBI agents [executed a search warrant](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/01/28/fbi-executes-search-warrant-fulton-county-main-election-office/) at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center in Union City, seizing hundreds of boxes of ballots, voter rolls, ballot images and other records from the 2020 election.
Fulton County leaders have publicly pushed back against the federal action while also acknowledging compliance with the warrant as executed.
Arrington said while the FBI was authorized to copy records under a separate court order, agents instead took physical custody of original ballots — including in-person, absentee and provisional ballots — and voter rolls.
“They got copies of our voter rolls and all the original ballots,” Arrington said. “Now we cannot verify that we’ve received everything back because there was no chain-of-custody inventory taken at the time the records were seized.”
Robb Pitts, chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said the county did not know of the FBI activity ahead of time.
STREAM ANF+: Fulton County officials demand return of election documents after FBI raid | Feb. 4, 2026 Update
One day after the raid, Pitts and Fulton County elections chair Sherri Allen continued to maintain that their county’s elections process and procedures are secure, fair and accurate. They claim political retribution from the White House was behind the raid.
A Fulton County spokesperson later said the search warrant pertained to “a number of records related to the 2020 election.”
FBI agents secured an area around the large warehouse building that houses the county elections hub with yellow tape. They could be seen loading boxes from the building into trucks.
FBI spokesperson Jenna Sellitto confirmed the boxes contained ballots. Among the 2020 election documents sought are ballots, tabulator tapes from the scanners used to tally the ballots, electronic ballot images and voter rolls.
The U.S. Justice Department had no immediate comment.
Last month, the Justice Department sued the clerk of the Fulton County superior and magistrate courts in federal court, seeking access to documents from the 2020 election in the county. The lawsuit said the department sent a letter to the clerk, Che Alexander, but that she had failed to produce the requested documents.
The Justice Department complaint said the purpose of its request was “ascertaining Georgia’s compliance with various federal election laws.” Alexander has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
A three-person conservative majority on the State Election Board has repeatedly sought to reopen a case alleging wrongdoing by Fulton County during the 2020 election. It passed a resolution in July seeking assistance from the U.S. attorney general to access voting materials.
The state board sent subpoenas to the county board for various election documents last year and again on Oct. 6. A fight over the state board’s efforts to enforce the 2024 subpoena is currently tied up in court.
The raid follows a December 2025 admission by Fulton County elections officials that [they did not properly sign tabulator tapes](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/12/23/fulton-county-admits-verifying-315000-votes-2020-without-poll-worker-signatures/) after the 2020 election, which is a violation of state regulations.
The county also noted it had misplaced other tabulator tapes and documents related to the election.
The admission was made by county attorney Ann Brumbaugh during a Dec. 9, 2025, [meeting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK_JF-Eh4gc) of the State Elections Board.
Tabulator tapes are essentially receipts printed from ballot tabulation machines that help to verify that the number of voters matches the number of votes. They are a key piece of the verification and certification process in every county election across the state.
[Georgia regulations state](https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/183-1-12) a poll manager and two witnesses must be present for the printing, checking and signing of each tape from the machines.
Fulton County was at the center of President Donald Trump’s contention that he won Georgia in the 2020 election, an election that saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat to win the state — or any deep Southern state — in a presidential election since 1992.
In the aftermath of that election, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed [a series of historic indictments](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/politics/donald-trump/) against Trump and more than a dozen of his GOP allies, charging that they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s election results.
The crux of Willis’ indictments was a [January 2021 phone call](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/politics/donald-trump/) between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the then-45th president asked Raffensperger — now a GOP gubernatorial candidate — to find enough votes for Trump to carry Georgia.
However, a since-acknowledged romantic relationship between Willis and special prosecutor [Nathan Wade](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/10/21/read-former-trump-special-prosecutor-nathan-wades-testimony-before-us-house-judiciary-committee/) threw the case into an entirely new political and judicial sphere.
Willis was eventually dismissed from prosecuting the case, which landed it in the hands of the [Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/10/09/new-deadline-set-appointing-trump-special-prosecutor-georgia-election-case/). On the day before Thanksgiving, Fulton Superior Court Judge [Scott McAfee](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/11/14/judge-dismisses-3-charges-president-trumps-georgia-election-indictment/), who was overseeing the case, granted a request from the council to drop the [charges](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/11/26/president-donald-trumps-historic-georgia-indictment-ends/), [dismissing the case in its entirety](https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/politics/donald-trump/).
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