Of Course the Notoriously MAGA Georgia Election Board Was Involved in the Fulton County Raid

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Of Course the Notoriously MAGA Georgia Election Board Was Involved in the Fulton County Raid

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Hello, happy Thursday!

This week, we’ll look back at the very bizarre and sinister revelation from a few months ago involving members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working with an advocacy group to find “evidence of voter fraud,” the role of the MAGA-aligned Georgia State Election Board in the FBI raid in Fulton County, and, of course, the latest developments in the nationwide redistricting battle as we head toward the midterms.

Let’s dig.

Democrats demand investigation into DOGE voter data deal

Democratic lawmakers demand investigation into DOGE election data deal.

Let’s go back first.

In January, the DOJ acknowledged in a very bizarre court filing that in March 2025, two members of Musk’s DOGE team who worked at the Social Security Administration, signed an agreement with an advocacy group that wanted to “find evidence of voter fraud and overturn election results in certain states.”

If this sounds bad and weird, that’s because it is.

In its filing, the DOJ said one of those DOGE staffers signed a “voter data agreement” with the advocacy group and may have attempted to use Social Security data to search for evidence of voter fraud.

The DOJ never named the “advocacy group” in the court filing, which is why Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT), Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), and Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) announced in a recent letter that they were launching an investigation into the entire episode.

(They want answers and, frankly, so do I!)

These lawmakers are sending letters to 15 known election denial groups (including organizations like True the Vote and America First Policy Institute), requesting documents to help them identify which group was involved in this scheme.

“When Americans share their sensitive information with the federal government, they have confidence that it is in safe hands and protected from unwanted eyes,” Garcia said in last week’s letter. “Legally, this should always be the case. Unfortunately, what we hear from whistleblowers and what we see in court documents suggests that Trump’s ‘DOGE’ is violating Americans’ privacy for his own political gain.”

“Sensitive personal information provided to the government should never be used for political purposes,” Morelle said. “Yet DOGE signed an agreement to share this information with an advocacy group whose stated goal was to overturn the election results.”

A reminder that election deniers are running elections in Georgia

The Georgia State Board of Elections – a five-person board made up of three MAGA-aligned members, Janelle King, Janice Johnston and Rick Jeffares – may have been involved in the FBI raid in Fulton County.

Trump once called these three board members “pit bulls, fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.” (Spoiler alert: This is the complete opposite of what these board members did.)

According to a recent AJC report, Johnston played a significant role in the FBI’s raid on an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, last January.

As the AJC details, for years now, Johnston has claimed that there was voter fraud in Fulton County in 2020. (Needless to say, she has never provided any evidence to support these claims). Johnson was actually named as a key witness in the FBI affidavit for the January raid.

Since 2022, Johnston has repeated lies about the 2020 election and has called for the firing of Fulton County’s elections director.

After MAGA allies were installed in 2024, the board approved a rule giving it new authority in certifying elections.

The rule is problematic because it gives the board the authority to delay certification until a “reasonable investigation” has been conducted into any anomalies in the voting process, as TPM reported. The problem is that the rule is intentionally vague, leaving things like “discrepancies” open to one’s own interpretation.

And the board is really only intended to play a primarily ministerial role in the certification process, per state law.

As experts explained to TPM, this is all (unsurprisingly) designed to give more power to these election deniers.

In the United States: redistricting

Florida

In a victory for Republicans, the Florida Supreme Court on Friday rejected a challenge to Gov. Ron Desantis’ redistricting drive.

The challenge was launched by two Florida constituents and the National Redistricting Foundation, asking the court to block Desantis’ special legislative session on redistricting next month.

new York

Along with New York Republicans, the Supreme Court ruled this week that New York’s only GOP-dominated district does not need to be redrawn.

Virginia

On Wednesday, for the second time, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a referendum on democratic redistricting could take place. Early voting is expected to begin Friday.

The court has still not ruled on the legality of the redistricting proposal and referendum, but it has allowed the referendum to move forward while the legal challenge continues to play out.