Georgia lawmaker urges state takeover of Fulton County Elections after FBI ballot seizure

Lawmaker urges state takeover of Fulton elections

Republican Sen.Greg Doleza is urging a takeover for the Georgia State Election Board to take over Fulton County elections after an FBI seizure at the county's election hub in January. 

ATLANTA - A Republican state lawmaker is calling for the Georgia State Election Board to take over Fulton County’s elections following the unsealing of a federal search warrant affidavit.

'It's past time for the state to take over'

What Republicans are Saying:

Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, urged the state board to exercise its power under Georgia’s 2021 Election Integrity Act to seize control of the local board. The move comes one day after the unsealing of an affidavit that authorized the FBI to seize hundreds of boxes of ballots and other 2020 election documents from the Fulton County Election Hub last month.

Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, is calling for the Fulton County Elections to be handled by the state on Feb. 11, 2026. (FOX 5 Atlanta)

"It's past time for the state to take over for county elections," Dolezal said. "They are incapable, unwilling, or for some reason refuse to clean up their voter rolls. And we have dirty voter rolls. You can have dirty elections."

The calls for a takeover have highlighted a sharp partisan divide at the State Capitol. State Election Board member Salleigh Grubbs, one of three supporters of President Donald Trump on the Republican-led board, indicated she is open to the idea.

"It’s been a long time coming I think," Grubbs said. "A lot of questions need to be answered."

‘There are no smoking guns’

What Democrats are Saying:

Democratic lawmakers, however, characterized the investigation and the resulting affidavit as a coordinated effort by "election deniers" to repeat debunked claims about the 2020 election.

"There are no smoking guns," said Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta. "The five central allegations in this affidavit have been investigated ad nauseum. It is apparent that the same network election deniers who tried to overturn Trump's 2020 loss appear to have coordinated Trump's DOJ and the FBI on their seizure of Fulton County ballots."

Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, voices her opposition to a GOP-led effort to bring Fulton County Elections under state control on Feb. 11, 2026. (FOX 5 Atlanta)

Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, argued the push for a takeover is less about election integrity and more about political control.

"This is about taking control over state elections by the federal government, simply because a person cannot accept that they lost," Miller said.

‘Fulton County will fight'

What they're saying:

Fulton County officials have promised to challenge any state effort to take control of their operations.

"Fulton County will fight," Fulton County Chair Robb Pitts said on Tuesday following the release of the 20-page federal affidavit and warrants used to search the county's election hub. "We'll fight this with every resource that's at our disposal, and we will not stop fighting."

GA lawmaker calls for state to take over Fulton County elections

Republican Sen. Greg Dolezal from Cumming calls for the state of Georgia to take over the overseeing of Fulton County elections. This comes following the unsealing of an affidavit for the FBI to raid the Fulton County Elections Office in Fairburn, GA.

What is the 2021 Election Integrity Act?

Dig deeper:

Under the 2021 law, the State Election Board has the authority to replace local election boards that are deemed underperforming. If the board moves forward, it would represent an unprecedented state intervention into the management of Georgia's largest county.

The 2021 Election Integrity Act (SB 202) was passed following the 2020 election. Republican lawmakers used the law to trigger a performance review of Fulton County the following year. This was the first major test of whether the state would actually seize control of local election management.

The state board eventually voted unanimously to end the performance review without a takeover, citing "significant improvements" made by Fulton County.