The Justice Department has sued Fulton County, Georgia, seeking access to ballots and other election materials from the 2020 presidential race, escalating the Trump administration’s renewed effort to scrutinize an election President Donald Trump lost to former President Joe Biden.
In a lawsuit filed Friday, the department said it needs the records to investigate Fulton County’s “compliance with federal election law.” The suit demands that county election officials turn over “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election.”
Fulton County officials previously told the DOJ that the requested materials are sealed under state law and cannot be produced without a court order, according to the filing. The lawsuit seeks to compel their release.
The legal action comes as Trump has publicly pressured his administration to uncover evidence supporting his long-standing claims that the 2020 election was improperly conducted. While Trump has repeatedly said the election was rigged, his own DOJ in 2020 did not find evidence of fraud on a scale large enough to alter the outcome of his defeat to Biden, and courts rejected dozens of related challenges.
In a statement accompanying the lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon accused Georgia officials of undermining election integrity, indirectly invoking the concept of vote dilution.
“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Dhillon said. “At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws.”
Fulton County election officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Fulton County was also a focal point of Trump’s 2020 election fraud allegations, including claims involving a water leak and ballot containers mischaracterized as suitcases. Two election workers later won a defamation judgment against Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani over his statements that led to online threats against them.
The lawsuit also revives focus on a key state where Trump narrowly lost and where Biden became the first Democrat to win since 1992. In January 2021, Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse the result, a call that later became central to a criminal investigation.
That investigation culminated in a 2023 racketeering indictment against Trump and several allies by Fulton County prosecutors. The case later unraveled amid disputes over the conduct of the lead prosecutors and was dismissed last month after the successor prosecutor said there was “no realistic prospect” of compelling a sitting president to stand trial in Georgia. Following the dismissal, Trump vowed to scrutinize those behind the case.
The county’s mail-in ballots remain preserved under a court order that extended beyond the usual 22-month retention period during litigation challenging the election results.
The Fulton County lawsuit is part of a broader DOJ campaign. On Friday, the department also announced lawsuits against Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Nevada for refusing to provide statewide voter registration lists. With those filings, the DOJ has now sued 18 states, most led by Democrats and all states Trump lost in 2020, seeking access to voter data under the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
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State officials have argued the demands risk exposing sensitive personal information. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said her state would not comply, arguing the federal government has no legal right to the data.
The new lawsuits come three days after Trump told Politico that evidence would soon emerge to vindicate his claims about the 2020 election, signaling that the issue remains central to his second-term agenda.
