NEW ANALYSIS: Expert Review Finds Claims Driving Federal Investigation into Fulton County 2020 Election Uncreditable

WASHINGTON — The States United Democracy Center today released Report on the “Election Oversight Group” Allegations About the 2020 Election in Fulton County, Georgia, an independent review evaluating the claims made in an “Election Oversight Group” (EOG) report. These allegations and conspiracy theories were echoed in the unsealed affidavit that led to the FBI’s raid of the Fulton County Elections Hub on January 28, 2026.

The review, authored by election administration and legal experts, finds that the EOG Report contains extensive flaws, does not meet the standards of a credible post-election analysis, and provides no legitimate conclusions about the conduct or results of the 2020 election in Fulton County.

“What you’ll see in our report is that there is actually a coherent theory that explains every discrepancy in Fulton County, and it matches up with what people who were on the ground at the time saw,” said Ryan Germany, former General Counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State. “The 2020 election in Fulton County was free, fair, and secure. There was human error—but it’s been investigated over and over, and the amount of error comes nowhere close to changing the results of the election.”

“I’ve long felt it’s important to respond to false allegations about election administration for the health of our democracy, for the sake of posterity, and because facts matter,” said Stephen Richer, former Maricopa County Recorder. “This has taken on new importance because now some of these false allegations about election administration are seemingly serving as the basis for federal action. That’s problematic. That’s why we took the time to go through this 263-page report and compare it with the facts.”

“Despite all the noise and all the clamor about this election, no one has put together a coherent theory of fraud in the 2020 election,” said Justin Grimmer, Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. “And the EOG Report does not change that at all. Instead, it relies on faulty and inadequate evidence, unsupported claims, meaningless comparisons, omissions, and misreadings of primary sources. It misunderstands election law and disregards election safeguards in place in the 2020 election. And critically, it merely implies that certain kinds of evidence—or complaints that they have about how Georgia elections are run—add up to evidence of fraud.”

“The investigation into Fulton County isn’t happening in a vacuum,” said Dax Goldstein, Senior Counsel and an Election Protection Program Director at the States United Democracy Center. “It’s part of a broader pattern of the Trump administration pressuring states and undermining trust in our elections—and it’s all driven by conspiracies and lies. This report demonstrates that the claims driving that pressure are deeply flawed and unsupported. The facts are clear: the 2020 election in Fulton County was free, fair, and secure.”

The EOG Report contains 26 “Counts” alleging various forms of fraud or misconduct in Fulton County’s 2020 election. Among the claims are that hundreds of thousands of ballot images were improperly destroyed, voter rolls were inflated, votes were not reconciled with voter check-ins, and errors in the election system concealed widespread irregularities. The EOG Report suggests these issues could have affected election outcomes, despite the fact that the county preserved all physical ballots and employed multiple checks and safeguards to ensure vote accuracy.

The Fulton County report commissioned by States United breaks down every claim in the EOG Report—many of which were repeated in the affidavit supporting the FBI’s raid of the Fulton County Elections Hub—and finds the allegations to be based on faulty evidence, misinterpretations, and long-debunked conspiracy theories.

Key findings from the report include:

• Reliable safeguards ensured accurate results: All legitimate investigations and observations of the election confirm that Fulton County’s election was free, fair, and secure, and that Fulton County employed multiple checks to prevent errors from affecting outcomes.
• No credible or coherent evidence of fraud: The EOG Report contains unsupported claims, flawed data analysis, and misreadings of public records.
• Election procedures misunderstood: Allegations about ballot image preservation, signature verification, reconciliation, and voter rolls misrepresent Georgia law and the actual processes in place.

About the authors:

• Ryan Germany: Former General Counsel to three Georgia Secretaries of State, and partner leading the Political and Election Law Practice Group at Gilbert Harrell Sumerford & Martin, P.C.
• Stephen Richer: Former Maricopa County Recorder, legal scholar at the Cato Institute, and fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center
• Justin Grimmer: Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, specializing in election data analysis

After examining all 26 “Counts” in the EOG Report, the authors conclude that none of the claims withstand scrutiny and that the 2020 election in Fulton County was free, fair, and secure.

Read the full report here.

###

About the States United Democracy Center

States United is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the rule of law and free, fair, secure elections. We provide direct support to state officials and law enforcement leaders as they uphold the law and our system of checks and balances, protect public safety, defend elections, and preserve our democracy. For more information, visit statesunited.org.