The FBI's seizure of Fulton County's 2020 election ballots
Overview · reviewed October 28, 2026
In January 2026 the FBI searched the election office of Fulton County, Georgia, the county at the center of President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and seized its 2020 ballots, a week after Trump predicted prosecutions over the contest.[1][2]A federal judge ruled in May that the Justice Department could keep the ballots, though another ruling in July denied it personal information about the county's 2020 election workers.[3][4]
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A federal judge ruled in May that the Justice Department could keep the ballots, though another ruling in July denied it personal information about the county's 2020 election workers.[3][4]
Coverage over time
Share of tracked outlets · weekly (UTC)
23%0%
Jan 2026this week
LeftCenterRightLighter bar: this week so far
Each bar is the share of the outlets on our Left / Center / Right rating scale that we tracked publishing that week which carried reporting on this story, split by the outlets' ratings. We track more outlets now than in the archive, so a share keeps earlier and later weeks comparable. An outlet counts once a week however much it published, and outlets in one ownership or syndication group count as one on each side they appear on. A rating describes the outlet, not the report. A gap means no such reports were collected that week, not that nothing was reported anywhere. Weeks run Monday to Sunday in UTC, so a report published on a Sunday evening in US Eastern time counts in the next week. 2 more outlets off the scale (not rated, or outside the left-right graphs) also reported; they are not in this chart. See them.
Weekly counts, outlets and reports (6 weeks with coverage)
Outlets on the rating scale that carried this story each week, of the outlets tracked that week, newest first
Week of (UTC)
Left
Center
Right
Of tracked
Share
Receipts
Jul 6, 2026
8
22
14
44 of 560
8%
May 4, 2026
4
5
5
14 of 175
8%
Mar 23, 2026
3
4
2
9 of 170
5%
Feb 9, 2026
6
5
2
13 of 180
7%
Feb 2, 2026
7
11
6
24 of 177
14%
Jan 26, 2026
12
20
11
43 of 189
23%
Latest coverage
The newest reporting in this story's record.
Jul 6, 2026 · first reported · Headline from Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The warrant sought "all physical ballots" from the 2020 vote, along with tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls.[5] Fulton County's lawyers planned to sue the FBI and Justice Department over the search,[6] and unsealed documents showed that longtime skeptics of the 2020 results had played a key role in obtaining the warrant.[7] Trump's other efforts on elections are followed in the arc on his voting orders.
