Election expert testifies FBI's evidence in Fulton County ballot case 'doesn't make sense'

A leading elections expert told a federal judge on Friday that the evidence the FBI used to justify a recent seizure of 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, “doesn’t make sense.”

ATLANTA — A leading elections expert told a federal judge on Friday that the evidence the FBI used to justify a recent seizure of 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, “doesn’t make sense.”

Ryan Macias, a former U.S. Election Assistance Commission official, testified that the list of irregularities the FBI identified didn’t represent a crime and that the witnesses the government based their investigation on appeared misinformed..

The witnesses the FBI cited “use contradictory terminology and it represents a misunderstanding of how elections work,” Macias said.

“There’s no basis in reality for most of the witness statements,” he said. “There was missing information and the information that was relied on doesn’t reflect reality — what actually happened.”

The testimony came amid a hearing over custody of Fulton County’s ballots and election materials, which were seized by the FBI in January during a raid on an election hub, and whether the federal government demonstrated “callous disregard” for the county's rights. Fulton County sued and demanded the materials back last month.