Giving Georgia’s Republican-dominated State Legislature just got the dirt it needs to steal more control of the Democratic-heavy Fulton County elections, two election workers were fired Friday for shredding voter registration forms. 

Monday, county elections director Richard Barron told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he’d fired the workers at the Fulton County Board of Elections after they’d allegedly been seen and reported by their co-workers for destroying about 300 voter registration applications.

Voting begins Tuesday for municipal races in Fulton County for Atlanta’s mayor and City Council. 

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger publically called on the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate the alleged shredding, with a searing letter, writing:

Republicans have had Barron in their crosshairs since the 2020 election, even attempting to fire him at the county level. Thanks to new power given by Senate Bill 202, a restrictive voting bill passed by Georgia’s GOP-controlled General Assembly and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, an audit of Fulton county has begun at the state level, which could lead to a takeover of the county’s elections. 

This is likely the first step in an attempt to weaken the most important Democratic-held county in the state. 

“I don’t think there’s another state in the union that has a State Election Board with the power to turn a nonpartisan elections office into a partisan arm of the secretary of state’s office,” Barron told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A Fulton County poll worker who wishes to remain anonymous told Daily Kos that they heard the workers didn’t want to input the information, so it was easier to just shred the forms. It is important to note that voter registration applications do not identify party affiliation.

As you probably recall, Raffensperger has been subject to the wrath of former President Donald Trump after refusing to “find” more ballots in order to help overturn President Biden’s win in the state. Raffensperger is up for reelection in 2022. 

“The last internal poll I saw said that 87 percent of Republican primary voters felt like the election was stolen,” former Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) told Politico. “With those kinds of numbers, I don’t see Brad getting through the primary.”

In a recent Trump rally in Perry, Georgia, the former twice-impeached and one-term president called Raffensperger “incompetent and strange.” 

Georgia’s presidential election has been counted three times, and three times, there’s been no evidence of fraud. 

However, we all know Republicans don’t play fair, hence SB 202, the bill attempting to disenfranchise Georgia’s Black, and primarily Democratic, voters. 

Editorial Update: Daily Kos will continue to follow this story as more information emerges about the two workers, the 300 shredded voter forms, and more.