Hundreds of functional voting machines sat unused, locked away in warehouses, across metropolitan Atlanta as thousands of black voters weathered hours-long lines at the polls on Election Day.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, local officials in Cobb, DeKalb, and Fulton counties sequestered the machines due to "an ongoing federal lawsuit that argues Georgia's electronic voting machines could be hacked or tampered with."
But there's at least one major problem with this excuse: the ongoing litigation doesn't demand anything of the sort. Bruce Brown, an attorney for some of the plaintiffs in the case of Curling v. Kemp, noted this interesting turn of events in comments to the outlet:
No judge anywhere, at any time, has ever ordered Fulton County or any other county to set aside more machines than they said they could spare. No request was ever made by anyone to plaintiffs or the court suggesting that Fulton or anyone else needed more machines for this or any other election.
A Law&Crime analysis of the relevant court filings, motions, and orders in the case supports Brown's estimation of the problem here.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg has never issued any such decision. Nor have the plaintiffs or the defendants ever suggested such a scenario–functional machines kept under lock-and-key while polling sites struggle to accommodate voters–in any of their proposals to the court.
Brown's criticism of the decision didn't stop there. In an interview with Law&Crime, he elaborated on the failure of the counties affected by the lawsuit to properly prepare for Tuesday's high turnout election.
"Why didn't you ask for more?" he pondered out loud. "Why didn't you ask the Secretary of State? Why didn't you ask other counties? Why didn't you come back and ask the court? If you know you were going to be short, why did you just sit there knowing there was an election coming with huge turnout and not plan ahead?"
Brown also explained the genesis of the ongoing lawsuit excuse.
Earlier this year, the plaintiffs and the four state defendants–Cobb, Fulton, and DeKalb counties plus the Georgia Secretary of State–came to an agreement about which and how many machines wouldn't be used during the May primary election. There was no real disagreement there, Brown said.
When it came time for the same decision to be made about November's midterm election, however, the counties and Brian Kemp's office were completely silent about any potential problems.
"We said fine, and the notion was that the counties would be setting aside a certain number of machines," Brown explained, "but if they needed more they would come back and ask the parties for more information."
That never happened. And eventually the three counties in question–under the direction of Kemp's office–were overwhelmed by voters who stood in line for hours all across Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs.
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