An election worker from the State Farm Arena in Fulton County is now in hiding after a viral video falsely accused him of throwing away an alleged ballot, but in fact a voting instruction sheet.
“The release of the video and its caption led viewers to believe that the worker was agitated, causing the worker to crumble and throw away the ballot,” election observer Rick Barron told a non-partisan observer group on Friday.
“One thing you need to know, however, is that these ballots 8½ are 19 inches long. At no time did you see him pull anything out of the envelope and the crumbled piece of paper, they were instructions and it was a smaller piece of paper,” he added.
Barron said that the district, Georgia’s largest and the one with the highest number of provisional ballots, is now reviewing whether it needs to ensure the protection of workers.
“He must leave his home and stay with friends,” Barron said. “He is afraid to drive his car because the information about his car, about his license plate number is out there”.
Fulton County, where Atlanta is located, is in the final stages of the census. Barron said the final number should be available by Saturday morning.
The county turned out to be one to watch its ballots put Democratic candidate Joe Biden in Georgia in the lead with over 4,000 votes starting at 9:28 p.m. ET.
The State Farm Arena also had problems counting absentee ballots earlier this week after a water pipe burst caused a four-hour delay on election day.
Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said on Tuesday that the rupture “had no effect on the ballots – not a single ballot was damaged,” but “there was a brief delay in counting the absentee ballots while repairs were being made.
During Friday night’s press conference, Barron addressed rumors that there had been election fraud in Fulton County. Republican officials, such as Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer, claimed that observers were told to go home, but the ballots continued to be counted.
“No one was kicked out. I checked,” Barron said.
“At some point, my staff indicated that they would stop for the night. I told them to keep going until at least one in the morning, then they stopped over there,” he added. “But at no point were the observers told to leave.”
Washington Newsday turned to the Fulton County Elections Department for comment, but did not hear a response before the release.
