{"id":443928,"date":"2026-02-02T03:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T03:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/443928\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T03:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T03:02:11","slug":"the-fbis-seizure-of-2020-ballots-in-georgia-is-a-signal-of-whats-to-come-austin-sarat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/443928\/","title":{"rendered":"The FBI\u2019s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia is a signal of what\u2019s to come | Austin Sarat"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the nation\u2019s attention was focused on the ICE invasion of Minneapolis, another part of Trump\u2019s authoritarian state apparatus was in action more than a thousand miles away. On Wednesday 28 January, the FBI carried out a stunning raid<\/a> at the central election facility in Fulton county, Georgia.<\/p>\n

Its purpose: to seize ballots cast in the 2020 election<\/a>. Such an action is<\/a> unprecedented.<\/p>\n

In another unprecedented development, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was on the scene when the FBI carried out its raid. The New York Times quotes<\/a> a \u201csenior administration official\u201d who explained her presence by saying Gabbard \u201chas a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases, and election infrastructure\u201d.<\/p>\n

The deployment of such firepower shows the lengths to which the president is willing to go to press his claim that the 2020 election was rigged and to lay the groundwork for the seizure of ballots in 2026. The seizure of ballots in Georgia<\/a> is like a shot across the bow.<\/p>\n

It should prompt concerted planning by state attorneys general and secretaries of state to resist federal interference in November. We need more people like Maine\u2019s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, who said<\/a> after the FBI raid: \u201cIn Maine, we have strict chain of custody controls over our ballots \u2026 There are only two people that have the key. One of them is me. And he is not getting our ballots. He\u2019s not getting our voter rolls.\u201d<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t be fooled, the president won\u2019t give up on his quest to find evidence that officials in Fulton county destroyed or altered ballots.<\/p>\n

That is why in addition to the physical ballots the FBI<\/a> sought \u201ctabulator tapes for every voting machine used in Fulton County \u2026 ballot images produced during the original ballot count beginning on November 3, 2020, the recount, and any other ballot images that were created from ballot scanning from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County\u201d. They also sought voter rolls from the 2020 general election including records pertaining to \u201cabsentee\u201d and \u201cearly voting\u201d including \u201cto whom an absentee ballot was issued, from whom an absentee ballot was received, or who participated in advanced voting or election day voting\u201d.<\/p>\n

All told, the FBI took more than 700 boxes of election records<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s search and seizure is the latest step in a long-running battle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In November 2024, the Republican-dominated state election board subpoenaed 2020 election materials from Fulton county. When the county went to court to try to quash the subpoena, the state election board sought help from Pam Bondi<\/a> \u201cto effect compliance with voting transparency\u201d, according to a justice department lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In December, the justice department sued<\/a> on the grounds that \u201cthe county is in violation of \u2026 the Civil Rights Act\u201d. The suit asserted that the attorney general had \u201csweeping power\u201d to obtain election records.<\/p>\n

All of this makes sense when we recall the president\u2019s obsession with Georgia\u2019s 2020 election results. Among other things, he claimed<\/a> in a call with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia\u2019s secretary of state, that about 5,000 dead people had ballots cast in their names and that \u201cthousands and thousands who went to the voting place on November 3 were told they couldn\u2019t vote, were told they couldn\u2019t vote because a ballot had been put on their name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president also alleged that \u201cat least 18,000 … voters\u201d were connected to a Fulton county election worker who was a supposed \u201cscammer\u201d. \u201c[The 18,000 ballots] weren\u2019t in an official voter box, but they were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases but they weren\u2019t in voter boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of those claims was proven false, and the Fulton county ballots were subject to multiple recounts.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, in a recent interview with the New York Times, the president expressed regret<\/a> about \u201cnot ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election\u201d. He \u201cdoubted whether the Guard was \u2018sophisticated enough\u2019 to carry out the order effectively\u201d.<\/p>\n

Enter the FBI.<\/p>\n

It seems that in the world he wants to create, there is no future until the injuries (whether real or imagined) done to him are made right<\/p>\n

After the FBI raid, the president reposted<\/a> the following to his Truth Social account: \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s legal team exposing the 2020 election fraud at the Georgia State Farm Arena \u2026 running the same stacks of ballots over, and over, and over, all through the night until Biden was ahead, stealing the election from President Trump. This is exactly why the FBI raided the election center today \u2026 This is only the beginning. prosecutions are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president added,<\/a> \u201cTRUMP WON BIG. Crooked election.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems that in the world he wants to create, there is no future until the injuries (whether real or imagined) done to him are made right. Just last week, during his speech to the World Economic Forum, Trump reiterated<\/a> that 2020 \u201cwas a rigged election\u201d. And he added: \u201cPeople will soon be prosecuted for what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in the Trump administration<\/a>, what the president wants, the president gets. That\u2019s why the FBI seized what it did in Fulton county.<\/p>\n

In the name of election integrity, the administration seems bent on ensuring that elections can be free and fair only if they turn out the way the president wants. That\u2019s why it would be a mistake to write off the raid as just a rehashing of the past.<\/p>\n

It sends a powerful signal to election officials everywhere that they will be under scrutiny, as they never have been before, by an administration that insists that the federal government will take a leading role in policing elections and in making sure that they are carried out to its satisfaction. The FBI raid is, in the world of elections, what the ICE invasion of Minneapolis is in the world of law enforcement.<\/p>\n

An effort at intimidation.<\/p>\n

As one of Fulton county\u2019s election officials put it<\/a>: \u201cAll of this is about disrupting the elections in November. All this is about Fulton \u2013 the most important County in Georgia and maybe even the nation \u2026 This is all a distraction to make people fearful to go to the polls in November.\u201d<\/p>\n

It should also serve as a wake-up call, a preview of what is in store in several months. The FBI, the justice department, and the intelligence community are all coming to places like Fulton county, places where, left to their own devices, voters might not do what the president wants them to do.<\/p>\n

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America\u2019s Death Penalty<\/p>\n